Julian Stallabrass Controversy

The entire interview was intended to a specific audience – artists. Thus, ethos was a vital technique to establish the speakers’ credibility in their commentary about the art industry. Both Wiley and M.I.A are recognized artists in their particular fields. At the onset, their credibility as artists and thus, critics of the industry are well established throughout the interview. By narrating a wealth of experience in working with different artists from different countries, their thesis about the death of art in New York is strengthened. By reputation, both artists are multi-awarded. Wiley is a Yale educated portrait painter whose work has been cited for its unique fusion-style rendering of African-American men in heroic poses. He is recipient of the Artist of the Year Award from

The way we see and perceive this art is predetermined by a variety of different factor ranging from cultural background to socioeconomic status. “A people or a class which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and to act as a people or class than one that has been able to situate itself in history. This is why -- and this is the only reason why -- the entire art of the past has now become a political issue” (J. Berger pg. 33) He argues that if a group of people are robbed of being able to create their own culturally relative and socially correct standards for art, then they are being oppressed from engaging as political equals. People use art to understand their place within world history and create social and political meaning for themselves or their culture. Art gives you the power to control how people perceive the past, the present and possibly even the future. Although now the ability to control what art people see isn’t as “regulated” as it once was, but prior to the invention of the camera and the internet, art was controlled by the minority of the elite and wealthy. “the art of the past is being mystified because a privileged minority is striving to invent a history which can retrospectively justify the role of the ruling classes and such a justification can no longer make sense in modern terms” (J. Berger, Pg.157). The upper class mystifies the general population to stay in control; without the ability to see things through our own eyes, people are being deprived of their right to understanding themselves and placing themselves in a role of society. Mystification contributes a negative influence on our society. Mystifying of art distinguish upper class and low class, and more importantly causes the past of certain groups and cultures, such as women,

Despite my research strongly suggesting that street art frequently has socio-political underlying messages and it is extremely accessible to the youth, I was unable to find definitive evidence concerning if street art is effective in portraying socio-political messages to the young. Therefore, I conducted an investigation to act as primary research and hopefully give results that could answer the question. I aimed to discover the opinion of a small group of London young adults; whether they thought that street art had an ability to convey socio-political themes and if they felt the art had any influence in their lives.

Banksy’s projects always revolve around a key idea relating to the site and time specific political and socio-economic issues. Banksy is known for condensing complex global issues, not always at the attention of the general public, and putting his stance on the issue in very simplistic terms through his art. He gained a major following across the world of all ages and socio-economic beginnings. Another aspect that makes Banksy very likable to the communities is the fact that he wants his art to be public and available to everyone in all the parts of the world, instead of just a handful of high end galleries, museums, and private collector’s cellars. Moreover, the Banksy Effect was a central force to bring attention to street art, not vandalizing and meaningless to the majority graffiti, and put it on an international art arena. Bristol is not the only city in the world embracing the street artists. Miami, Baltimore, Barcelona, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and many more cities are progressively embracing street art rather than repelling it. Thus, in the next section I will turn to the discussion on the public policy in favor of Banksy and his fellow street artists, current possible legal avenues and briefly touch

Throughout the history of socially engaged art, Rick Lowe’s Project Row Houses can be regarded as one of the most successful projects in exemplifying how art and community can be unified together to incite social change. Founded in 1993, Project Row Houses has managed to revitalize a marginalized population in Houston and subsequently provided a collective space to instigate dialogues between artists and residents of Third Ward. Although such community-art projects are not uncommon in today’s society, the intention of collaborating with disenfranchised communities have been a long-debated question among art critics and members of the public. Since the beginning of 20th Century, these works of art have been given different titles such as participatory art, community art and activist art which falls under the umbrella term “social practice”. Inspired by early avant-garde movements such as Conceptualism, Fluxus, Dada, these forms of interventions have seen an increase in the number of artists working outside the confines of the traditional museum and creating works that liberate art from its aesthetic framework. Therefore in this essay, an in-depth analysis of socially engaged

C-Life is Beautiful, Mr. Brainwash’s devue art show was, in words of those who worked on the project, Shepard Fairey, and Banksy himself, was anything but that. But with diligent effort, Banksy observed something more than the superficial concept of beauty, he saw the abuse of it. Banksy used this film as a mouthpiece to show the parallels in how the media trivializes and commercializes art through the general populous perspective of art and media explanation of “profound pieces”. Life may not be beautiful, but this expose on who we view art just may be. Change

It's for this very reason that the Dada spirit lives within Pop art and the readymades. The international symbol of this anti label created a context of pop art to be seen as extreme and brash. ''An inherited culture that had now become unacceptable was replaced''5. Paolozzi was the scene as an instrumentalist who introduce pop art to the British culture. His works are part readymade and sculpture 'The city of the Circle and square,1963/66' . A portrait of a counterpart of a Roman goddess, using contemporary materials and philosophy. The devotion of attention to common objects, gives the context of pop art another layer to having irony and detachment.''The consumption of popular culture is basically a social experience, providing information derived from and contributing to our statistically normal roles in society. It is a network of message and objects that we share with others''6. As many art movements develop, cultural inspiration and history seem to be the main tradition to turn to in the tradition.'' There is nothing new in art, that has not been attempted before at one time or another, in antiquity, or by Picasso''7. The Pop movement in their defence was only doing what had been done before them, by investigating the Dada

Who Runs the Gift Shop: A Cultural Critique of Banksy’s Documentary Banksy is a street artist who is both famous and infamous for the work he does. His 2010 documentary, Exit Through the Gift Shop only adds to this. As the popularity of reality television and the cult of celebrity become ever more present in the current culture, drawing the line between what is real and what is fake becomes more and more difficult. What works such as Exit Through the Gift Shop do is raise the question: How much do these distinctions matter.

Art is one of the few things in the world that has a different criterion for everyone. Some prefer to judge the techniques and details within each piece, but some would rather judge the perplexity of the meaning behind each symbolism within an artwork. However, not all are divided by this fine line. Hap from “The Soul of Capitalism” would be a part of the third group of people, the ones that appreciate complicated techniques while looking behind the canvas to appreciate the meaning of an artwork. Comparatively, the Canadians from “When Canada Met Andy” had the same perspective as Hap. Although Hap will not favour or properly interpret Andy Warhol’s “Pop-Art”, he will be able to appreciate the work that Warhol put into his art.

In the mid 1980’s iconic pop artists Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat teamed up on a series of highly influential untitled paintings. Situating this body of work within Neil Brown’s model as adressed in “Paradox and Imputation,” (Brown) can provide a comprehensive consideration of this series of collaborations, placing the pieces within a wider historical & socio-political context. In considering this body of work, it is important to situate it within the broader practice of each artist, in order to note the trajectory towards this series. These two painters cross-identification is a testament to the revolutionary capabilities of collaboration, particularly between icons of different cultural standing and eras for

This was the work done at the ‘Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS)’ which was within the University of Birmingham. The work they carried out here looked primarily at ‘troublesome’ individuals who were categorised by society in that way. One example of this found in Cohen (1972) was the idea that working class boy’s behaviour was seen as being troublesome. An idea of this could be ‘the mods and rockers’. The culture in which they were surrounded by was related to violence.

In recent years, Banksy has been recognized as an international artist and filmmaker in 2010 with the documentary Exit through the Gift Shop. The world of fine art and museums have accepted his work and the value of his street art exponentially increased. His work being showcased in gallery spaces willingly along with several installations throughout the world. Banksy’s work is by definition what is considered contemporary art in the aspect of the speculation and the juxtaposition that arises when his work is put on display in fine art museums.

For its first annual “ Forum” exhibition in 1917, Marcel Duchamp was the leading figure for displaying art for the, “American Society of Independent Artists” committee. Most significant, he anonymously submitted a work of art that would be so shocking and offensive

Through the 20th century’s proliferation of popular art, a binary opposition was created with the dominant pre-existing European aesthetics. Artists using nontraditional tools challenged the canon’s notions of value and, in this way, fought against repressive desublimation, in which high culture and art become commodified and absorbed into a material capitalistic society. The purpose of this paper is to address the juxtaposed values of “high” and “pop” art to determine if their values should be equalized. This paper is divided into three sections. The first section examines intent. The second section examines the effects of the environment in which an artwork is created and viewed. The third section examines changes and continuities as they

Art today is often portrayed as refined, enjoyable and exciting. The ornate or unique appearances of museums and other cultural institutions, akin to majestic cathedrals and monuments, is a public testament to what is often seen as society’s value for art. However, beneath this flamboyant façade, as Joshua Bell’s social experiment demonstrates, art is still often grossly underappreciated by society at large. The results of Bell’s experiment as well as society’s perception of the definition of art show that society often judges art by its surroundings or exterior, viewing art as an activity for the wealthy or those with means to enjoy art.