River Of Words / 'A Brief History Of Graffiti' on BBC4

All Graffiti Images:  River Soar, South Leicester And Beyond, August 2015

The images in this post were all collected during a recent cycle ride along the towpath of the River Soar, from my inner Leicester home, to the southern periphery of the city, and beyond.  Apologies for the sometimes questionable quality, - my phone was the only image capture device to hand on that particular occasion.

I won't pretend there's anything remotely original about their subject matter.  This fascination with the calligraphic scrawling and stenciled philosophies of urban graffiti writers is something that runs like a thread through much of my artwork in recent works, and I’m hardly the only one tapping into such things as a visual or a semiotic resource.  These days, certain prominent street-artists have the status of international celebrities, and there are shelves of coffee table books devoted to their work.  Some would argue that recycling the various forms of contemporary street art, as a generically urban signifier, became a somewhat lazy trope many years ago.

And yet…  Whenever I venture out of my front door, on foot or on wheels, there it all still is, a restless, polychromatic tangle of stylized characters, hieroglyphs, icons and symbols, endlessly combining, self-cancelling and regenerating.  The city never ceases rewriting the unofficial account of itself in draft after draft.  It may be overly familiar, but that just proves it is still completely current as a means of communication/expression.  Being distinctly alternative, less densely populated routes through any city, river and canal towpaths are usually rich in graffiti.  However predictably, I was soon punctuating my pleasant Summer afternoon ride at regular intervals to document the current crop in South Leicester.

Actually, what might appear an inability to abandon a comfort zone of artistic subject matter on my part is slightly less straightforward than it might seem.  For some weeks, I’ve been considering possible directions for the next phase(s) of my artwork, mentally rehearsing various alternatives in a general sense, whilst idling in neutral, as it were.  At such moments, I often found it useful to deliberately return to a familiar starting point, whilst considering as yet untried ways of exploring it.  It may not be about the original subject so much as how one transmutes it.  In the case of some of these images, it may be the abstract qualities in general, and a certain, occasional sense of cancellation, that interests me primarily.  I also sense an increasing engagement with some of the spaces between marks as well as with the actual statements.

One current notion is that I’d quite like at least one aspect of my future output to be more self-consciously painterly.  The basis of much of my recent work, culminating in the ‘Map’series of pieces exhibited at June’s ‘Mental Mapping’ exhibition, took layered advertising posters as their starting point, both as content, and as an actual medium.  It’s no accident then, that the finished pieces took the form of paper collage as much as of painting per se.  I have no problem with that at all, but do wonder if it’s now time to return to something a little more fluid, rather than being quite so extensively ‘pieced together’.

In that context, the gestural, calligraphic quality of much graffiti, the unmistakable clues to its use of fluid media, and the flowing ‘one-hit’ nature of its execution, all feel quite significant just now.  These are qualities that don't attach themselves naturally to my default picture-making demeanour, and thus things that part of me periodically yearns to try to push up against.  I do believe that, ultimately, any creative practitioner can only really become the best artist they were going to be all along, but also that the limits of that are best defined by periodically pushing up against the things that come less easily.

Some of the above might seem to contradict my oft-stated ambitions to also work in non-painterly media, (the collaborative film, ‘Orfeo’, and my ‘Cement Cycle’ photographs being recent attempts to scratch that itch).  However, I’ve never aspired to abandoning painting, (quite the opposite), - merely to widening my range.  In fact, one of the circles I’d really like to square is that of the relationship between traditionally painterly and non-painterly, (possibly mechanical) media, even within the same work.  That's a clear concern much contemporary painting, and it seems to me that, paradoxically, an open acknowledgement of the material qualities inherent to paint could actually be of more rather than less use, in that context.

I wouldn't want you to think any of this is set in stone, (or concrete), - I'm just trying to illuminate certain trains of thought that characterise my own on-going creative process, even when work isn't actually in full flow.  Remember how I once used to fret about my (often over-extended) periods of hiatus?  It feels like definite progress that I now recognise these periods of creative 'rest' are just valuable refreshment breaks, and not a sign that it's all ground to a halt yet again.

A typical strategy at such times is to increasingly expose oneself to the work of other artists, in search of new (or even old) connections.  That’s an on-going process for most creative people, of course.  However, whilst it can be about confirming the validity (or otherwise), of work already in hand, between phases of work, it can be more about stimulating new processes or concerns not previously explored.  In this mode, I sometimes find it useful to investigate deliberately, certain artists whose work I’ve previously overlooked, or even those to whom I might have an initial antipathy.  Serendipity, synchronicity and plain old coincidence can all be enormous value, not least as a function of the fractal digital re/search we all indulge in routinely nowadays.

I’ll expand on that in the near future, but for now, I want to return to the initial theme of this post with mention of a recent BBC4 TV broadcast, ‘A Brief History Of Graffiti’ [1.].  I don’t own a TV these days, but do watch some stuff on demand.  Often, that’s just miscellaneous comedy, consumed for relaxation, but occasionally there's something more mentally nourishing, - like this.  In fact, it’s exactly the kind of thing I would probably miss out on once the current Government forces the BBC to charge viewers for its IPlayer on-demand service.  In passing, I’m perpetually baffled by how willingly the British will sacrifice the few shared things they have left of any genuine quality, to the imperatives of the market place, - usually devaluing them beyond repair, (but don’t get me started). [2.].

Richard Clay.  Still From: 'A Brief History Of Graffiti', BBC4 TV, (First Broadcast: 25 August, 2015)

Anyway, the programme was an engaging and informative survey of the tradition of alternative, wall-based expression, presented by Richard Clay, - an academic with a nevertheless engaging enthusiasm for the subject.  He had my attention from the get-go, in particular with his discussion of Prehistoric cave painting, and its typical, reverse-stenciled hand motif, (something I’ve reflected on here more than once).

That very human urge to assert “I woz ‘ere”, - to mark one’s individual identity within the group, and locate oneself in time, space and, most importantly, memory, was clearly there from our very origins.  It is clearly a key function of graffiti, and thus, a theme Clay returned to throughout his discussion.  It came to the fore again as he inevitably turned to the burgeoning of ‘Wild Style’ writing in 1970s Philadelphia and New York.  That was the birth of what might be regarded as the modern era of Graffiti, and still holds sway over the essential aesthetic of unofficial urban environments globally.  Certainly, the importance of the individual tag remains a key component, as a variety of personal trademark.

Also notable, was the connection of the prehistoric spray technology of diluted, ground earth pigment, scallop shell reservoir and blown reed, - with today’s ultra-convenient weapon of choice, the aerosol can.  Throwing paint was the most immediate application method from the very start, it would seem.

The flip-side of that coin is the function of graffiti in cementing the tribe, be it as blind allegiance to whichever clan one most identifies with, or in sharing common political or philosophical cause.  Translated Ancient Pompeian exhortations to violence against neighbouring cities, centred upon the gladiatorial area but clearly infecting wider society, prefigure current allegiances to football team or post code ‘hood’ in an even more overtly bloodthirsty manner.

To illustrate the importance of graffiti as political propaganda, Clay drew on the example of the Paris Commune of 1871.  Enjoyably, he revived the motif of the sprayed hand to illustrate how the invention of lithographic printing around the same time allowed activists to move beyond the individual, handwritten slogan, subverting an originally commercial medium to their own ends.  I might wish he could have extended this passage to make connections with the later traditions of Lettrism and Situationism, but I guess there’s only so much you can squeeze into an hour.  As the programme demonstrated, this is another theme that prevails, and the imperative to reassert an alternative voice (of whatever viewpoint) amidst the overwhelming Capitalist babble, may be even more vital than ever.  I’m sure anyone who follows this blog will be unsurprised that this stuff engaged captured my imagination.

Understandably, the survey ended with an examination of how Graffiti, and Street Art in general, came into the art mainstream, and how, nowadays, it’s as likely to be encountered in a gallery, as on the street.  I guess my own attempts to assimilate some of its tropes into my own process is a very tiny part of that.  Anyone disillusioned by the apparent ‘official’ co-option or acceptance through dilution this implies, may take heart from the activities of superstars of contemporary graffiti and Urban Exploration, Lek and Sowat.  It transpires that, whilst coordinating a temporary collective graffiti project at Paris’ Palais de Tokyo in 2012, they also found time to secretly decorate an inaccessible space in the bowels of the institution, unbeknownst to either its management or the visiting public.

I think we can all take pleasure from that, even if, as Richard Clay admitted, we still struggle to shrug off a certain ambivalence about someone inscribing our own walls.  I wonder if I'll be so quick with the paintbrush next time someone augments my property (as occasionally happens)?

I really enjoyed ‘A Brief History Of Graffiti’, both for its mild academic intent and palpable delight in the subversive impulse at the heart of graffiti.  If nothing else, by cropping up around the same time as my own lens turned again towards the omnipresent writing on walls, it encouraged me to believe that my own abiding attraction to the subject may not be quite as hackneyed as I sometimes fear.

You can catch up with the programme here, until 25 September 2015.

[1.]:  ‘A Brief History Of Graffiti’, BBC4, First Broadcast: 21.00, Wednesday, 26 August 2015.

[2.]:  Personally, I’d be taxing all the commercial broadcasters, advertising companies, etc. to fund all that’s best about the BBC, - keeping it public, free from advertising, egalitarian and, above all, A SERVICE!  I also realise this is the exact opposite of this Government’s current agenda, or indeed, the wider spirit of our age.  Perhaps I’m just pining for the broadcasting landscape of my childhood.  Say what you like though, once this stuff’s gone, - it’s gone; and I don’t see any commercial broadcasters trying to enrich my cultural experience in the same way.  If that makes me elitist, - so be it, (although I’ve never understood what’s so elitist about wanting to “Inform, educate and entertain” everyone equally, or enabling “Nation to speak peace unto nation”).

Set In Stone

Undying...

St Peter's Church Yard, Belgrave, North Leicester, May 2015

A Head Of Steam 1

School’s out for summer and, after the creative frenzy of recent months, I’m allowing myself a little time to just freewheel and recharge my batteries.  Creatively, I have an outside commission in hand, but my own work is on the back burner while I give some thought to what might come next.  The British weather’s hardly spectacular this year, but benign enough to allow a few relatively spontaneous trips out, such as the one I undertook the other day to Rempstone Steam & Country Show, in Nottinghamshire.

Foster Showman's Engine.  Typical Of The Breed

Foden Seven Ton Steam Truck.

Such quaint, family fun-type events have little connection with my artistic activities, and are hardly part of my normal routine.  However, it’s no secret that I have a marginal enthusiasm for elderly or unusual vehicles of various kinds, and that this is one way in which I can connect with the memory of both my late Father and his Father before him.  For my Dad, vehicles of various kinds were pretty much what Art is for me.  Indeed, some of my earliest memories are of him identifying every car or lorry we passed en route to the sweet shop, or watching him dismantle and rebuild one rusty Morris Minor after another on rainy Sunday afternoons.

1957 Ford Thunderbird

Mk1 E-Type Jaguar.  I'd still have one of these if anyone was giving it away.

In fact, before I got near the steam engines at Rempstone, there were various vintage cars, motorcycles and commercial vehicles to peruse at Rempstone.  Of particular interest was an immaculate 1957 Ford Thunderbird, which was incredibly stylish, and spoke to my interest in classic American vehicles.  I doubt there is a cleaner example on either side of the Atlantic.  It neighboured a stunning early E-Type Jaguar which, if not so rare here, may still be the most beautiful example of sleek automotive styling any company ever produced.

Velocette LE, With Interestingly Enclosed Flat-Twin Engine...

…And An Equally Unusual Little Two-Stroke Sunn

GMC Rat Rod Pickup Truck

Rare BSA Rocket 3 In The Car Park.  A Machine That Symbolises The Early 1970s
Demise Of The British Motorcycle Industry.

My eye was also drawn to an unusual little Velocette LE motorbike, and an equally intriguingly Sunn, with its aerodynamic rear fairing.  A General Motors pickup truck, corroding attractively in a patinated Rat Rod style felt slightly out of context, but regular readers will know I have a weakness for such conceits.  Perhaps most unusual was a beautifully restored ex-BBC outside broadcast van.  Both it, and a splendid bright yellow AEC recovery vehicle, felt like full-sized versions of the Dinky or Matchbox models of commercial vehicles I once spent hours pushing around the living room floor.

'Thumper' The Ex-BBC Austin Outside Broadcast Vehicle.

AEC Recovery Vehicle...

…And Another AEC Of Similar Vintage.

However, as the event’s name implies, the event’s main attraction was the array of even older steam traction engines on display.  In their case, this was an opportunity to connect with the memory of my Grandfather.  George Percy Marwood had been a contractor who owned and worked with steam-powered agricultural machinery on the farms around his home in the North Lincolnshire hamlet of Wickenby. 

Yet more childhood memories involved attending similar steam rallies with him and my father in his later years, and he would occasionally reminisce about his working life.  One story recalled an Italian wartime P.O.W. who, having been pressed into working on the land, grabbed a threshing knife and tried to make a run for it – before being ‘persuaded’ to change his mind. 

Lincoln-Built Engines...

The city of Lincoln, where I grew up, is both physically and psychologically divided into ‘Uphill’ and ‘Downhill’ districts.  If the twin edifices of cathedral and castle dominate the former, the latter was once largely identified by a concentration of metal forging and heavy engineering companies.  Amongst these were several manufacturers of steam traction engines, and my Grandfather once told me he’d been invited at one time to relocate to Australia to represent one of them.  Although he declined, I couldn’t help speculating just how differently things might have been for our family, had he accepted.  Either way, it was pleasing to see numerous Lincoln-built machines at Rempstone, including several Fosters, a Clayton, a Robey, and more than a few Marshalls from elsewhere in Lincolnshire.

…And Another.

I spent a happy afternoon strolling amongst the engines, photographing the mechanical details of what now feels like archaic technology.  There’s a specific and seductive aesthetic tied up with all those heavy castings, multiple rivets, brass and copper embellishments and painted pin lines so beloved of industrial archaeologists, amateur steam enthusiasts, and alt-culture Victoriana buffs alike.  It fascinates me how easily an appreciation of machinery can slip from nuts-and-bolts rationality into a ritualistic form of fetishism.  The Steampunk movement is an obvious example of this, in the context of steam engines, as is the Hot Rod/Drag Racing scene I sampled around this time last summer, in terms of the petrol engine.

Victorian (Aesthetic) Values

Such associations are probably magnified by my own interaction with all these machines being largely aesthetically and sensually driven.  My mechanical prowess doesn’t actually extend much further than tinkering with my bicycle, after all.  Certainly, I’m sure that most of the restorers, and operators of the traction engines would regard such talk with distinct bemusement.  However, even they can’t be immune to the sounds and smells, or the sheer physical presence of their lumbering machines.  It’s a tired cliché to talk of steam engines as being almost alive, but undeniable that there’s something deeply evocative in all that crackling coal, hissing steam, clanking, dripping and sizzling.  The aromas and impressions of heat are very much part of the experience, as is the immense potential energy bound up in those tons of far-from-inert metal.

In the end though, it’s all too easy to over-romaticise all that age-of-steam stuff.  That occurred to me as I watched the picturesque period-costume display of threshing, - a seasonal routine my Grandfather undertook numerous times, and in possibly less quaint conditions.  Slightly more chilling was a demonstration of cutting logs on a huge, completely unguarded, circular saw, driven by an adjacent engine.  It contrasted dramatically with the numerous training courses and Risk Assessments I’ve participated in, in order to legally operate similar modern tools a fraction of its size.  Emergency stop buttons don’t come into it.

Threshing...

…And Sawing Logs.  (Just to clarify, - that circular thing spinning next to the guy's ear
is a large, unguarded saw blade with a steam engine on the end of it).

There are insights into the harsher realities of the Agricultural Contracting life amongst some research undertaken and written up by my cousin’s husband, Paul Hickman.  I read a copy of Paul’s ‘The Marwoods: Wickenby Machine Men’ [1.] last year, learning a lot about the family, and the Marwood contracting concern, in the process.  Despite operating at the heart of one of Britain’s most productive agricultural counties, it seems that making a living from the business was often far from easy.  Local farmers could be particularly reluctant to pay up for work carried out, and there was inevitably a lot of money tied up in the sometimes temperamental and fuel-hungry equipment.  Labouring in the fields was one thing, but keeping the work flowing was something else altogether.  It was often necessary to move the slow-moving machines considerable distances at the end of a tiring day to be ready to start over on another farm the following morning.

Large Fowler Agricultural Engine

It seems that my grandfather was forced into consequent awkward conversations with the bank manager over the years.  His reputation for being a bit tight with money was a cause of some amusement in later years, - not least, his seeming belief that any shopkeeper’s stated price was merely a starting point for negotiation.  However, given his struggles to keep the business afloat in difficult times makes it all pretty understandable.  It’s possibly a little ironic that, despite his lifetime love of all things mechanical, my father actually made a career working for a bank.

That speaks volumes about changing generational aspirations (and opportunities).  My grandfather left school at the age of 14, and walked across the fields to his first farmhand job, early the next morning.  His first wages came in the form of a pair of work boots.  Seemingly, any prosperity he subsequently gained was achieved through pretty relentless graft and always counting the pennies. My father was a Grammar School boy, academic enough to qualify for a career counting other people’s pennies, instead of one in the fields, (and a pension that my mother still lives on quite comfortably).  Perhaps, relegating his love of mechanics to whatever leisure time remained was a deal he did with himself.

My perception is that we never felt either particularly well off, or especially hard up, as I grew up, but perhaps that luxury to not really have to think too much about money was the point.  In reality, there was clearly no material impediment to my own choice to pursue something as idealistic and impractical as an Art School education, (and a subsequent life of day-dreaming, and making the best of whatever modestly-paid work I’ve been able to secure).

Looking at my photos from Rempstone, my other main thoughts are fairly obvious ones about the rapid march of technology.  My grandfather made a living, well into the mid twentieth century, using equipment that Stephenson and Trevithic would have felt comfortable with, and that the local blacksmith could repair.  It was essentially the same Victorian technology that powered the Industrial Revolution and all the social and economic upheaval that accompanied it.

A Pair Of Fowler Agricultural  Engines Filthing The Place Up

I watched thick, black smoke belching from the engines as they winched each other across the parade ring, and reflected that the biggest challenge facing the next generations might be how to survive a physical environment altered irreversibly by all that routine burning of hydrocarbons and voracious consumption of resources.  Perhaps most striking of all, is the technological journey, in three generations of one family, from cast-iron and shovelled coal, via internal combustion and mass-production, to the digital imaging and information technology I'm now using to relate my Sunny afternoon out.

[1.]:  Paul Hickman, 'The Marwoods: Wickenby Machine Men', Branston, Lincolnshire, Private Publication, 2014

Run It Up The Flag Pole And See If It Flies...

When I took these images I thought they were mostly just about the abstract qualities of shape and joyous colour, plus all that implied movement.

Both Images: Rempstone Steam & Country Show, Nottinghamshire, July 2015

Now I look at them again, I realise they're equally about the startling juxtaposition of numerous, implied mixed messages.  It's hardly an original or profound thought, but I'm struck by how easily we reduce complex value systems of whatever form, into un-nuanced emblems.  The clashing of seemingly unrelated symbols is an idea I'd quite like to explore in my work at some point.  I'm not quite sure how just yet, so I'll just file it in the subconscious ideas bank for now.

In passing, it also occurs to me that the enduringly popular 'Smiley' is, I suppose, the prototype for what are now called Emojis.

On Reflection: Marlene Dumas, Richard Diebenkorn & Frank Stella

Frank Stella, 'Inflated Star And Wooden Star', Polished & Patinated Aluminium And Teakwood,
2014, (Detail)

Back in May, I spent a day catching up with a couple of major exhibitions in London.  At the time, I was tied up in my own work, and with exhibition preparations, and just never found time to write a blog post about my trip.  In fact, I even felt a little guilty about taking a whole day away from my work at the time.  However, the two shows I attended were both significant retrospectives of work by two painters I rate very highly, namely Richard Diebenkorn and Marlene Dumas.  I knew I’d regret it if I didn’t make the effort.

Royal Academy Of Arts, London, May 2015

Marlene Dumas, 'Jule - The Woman', Oil On Canvas, 1985

It feels too late to revisit either show in detail here now.  Suffice it to say that, in the event, I didn’t regret sacrificing my time (or money) in either of them.  ‘Marlene Dumas: 'The Image As Burden’, at Tate Modern [1.] was a surprisingly badly hung, and somewhat uneven show, but was still full of terrific stuff.  It was a reminder that Dumas is often up there with the best, as regards pushing paint around or distilling a resonant image.  ‘Richard Diebenkorn’, at The Royal Academy [2.] was just a once-in-a-blue-moon chance to catch up for real with the work of an artist I’ve been consistently drawn to, - ever since I first encountered him in my Teens.

Richard Diebenkorn, 'Berkeley #57', Oil On Canvas, 1953

Diebenkorns almost never appear on this side of the Atlantic.  Indeed, for many years, he was a painter whose work I studied longingly, without actually having encountered any hanging on a wall.  I attended the Whitechapel Gallery’s 1991 retrospective with some trepidation therefore, and was delighted to find that the paintings were even more satisfying than any reproduction could have implied.  Since then, I had only seen two or three more during a visit to San Francisco in 2000.  Diebenkorn is, above all, a painter’s painter, and one who demands first-hand engagement, so I was hardly going to forego this second opportunity to see a representative cross-section of his oeuvre.  It proved a conviction that was justified all over again.  Who knows if I’ll ever get another chance in this country?

Anyway, instead of spending too much time discussing exhibitions that have been over for some time, here are some photographs of a work by another, even bigger name American artist, namely Frank Stella.  It detained me for a few minutes on my way into the R.A., making for some striking images in the process.  Stella is an artist whose early, monochrome works have always appealed to me, not least for their austere geometric minimalism, but whose subsequent output seemed sometimes to succumb to the twin demons of bombast or empty decoration.  Perhaps it was always going to be difficult to work out of such sublimely distilled starting point, without appearing to be just adding stuff for the sake of it [3.].

Frank Stella, 'Empress Of India', Metallic Powder & Emulsion On Canvas, 1965

Frank Stella, 'Inflated Star And Wooden Star', Polished & Patinated Aluminium And
Teakwood, 2014 

Judging by his large sculpture, ‘Inflated Star And Wooden Star’ dominating the R.A. forecourt when I visited, he seems to have arrived at the point, late in his career, of producing large, grandiose sculptural statements for public spaces.  I’ll confess to sometimes feeling pretty underwhelmed by this kind of thing, although one must always remember not to get distracted by sheer scale and to judge each piece on it’s individual merits.  For every mirrored, amorphous blob of Anish Kapoor’s somewhat vacuous, international style, there’s a monumental, rusted Serra that still gives me a physical thrill, or a bonkers Oldenberg Pop intervention that makes me smile.

My initial impression was that the Stella might belong in the first category, - even down to its use of high-visual impact, polished metal surfaces.  Despite my reservations, I was soon relishing, and photographing in close-up, the wonderful distorted surface reflections on the larger of its two star forms.  Of particular appeal were the quasi-psychedelic distortions of the R.A.’s Neo-Classical façade, (with all that implies), and the dramatic contrasts and vivid colour afforded by the sublime early summer sunshine.

Having grabbed a few choice shots, I gave ‘IS&WS’ little further thought and moved indoors to immerse myself in Diebenkorn’s far more limpid world, (one that is reflective in a completely different way).  Looking back at the images however, I wonder if I was a little too dismissive of Stella’s efforts.  It seems to me that, in two rather different star forms, he plays with the idea of something having considerable mass, weight and materiality, but simultaneously made of light and gas.  The heavy timber of his smaller star, is essentially just a space frame, - a delineation of a polygonal portion of air, whilst, for all its metallic solidity, its larger partner is purely about the light it reflects.  Each also demonstrates what are essentially just conventions for describing something supremely intangible.  Any star we depict or make, can only ever be a mental construct.

The more I think about it, the more this seems like an intelligent, even philosophical, way to comment on the true nature of stars.  They’re undeniably there, on an astronomical and yet unapproachable scale.  Paradoxically, there’s really no ‘there’ at all, - just a massive concentration of energy we can only interact with in terms of the impression it exerts at a distance.  Cosmic!

[1.]:  'Marlene Dumas: The Image As Burden', Tate Modern, London.  5 February - 10 May, 2015

[2.]:  'Richard Diebenkorn', Royal Academy Of Arts, London.  14 March - 7 June, 2015

[3.]:  Is this something that could be said to have also plagued Jasper Johns’ later output?  Is it better to start out a bit rough and ready and allow increasing refinement to arrive with the passing years?  Is it ever possible, or even desirable, to plan these things anyway?