January 23, 2007
Against Streetart: Tale of the Paint Splasher
Over the last few months, someone has been splashing paint over major streetart works all over the city. The "Splasher", as he's come to be known, has a taste for targeting major pieces by Swoon, Obey, Momo, and others. His trail of paint-dripped terror extends from Williamsburg, to Soho, and back again-- and he's already obliterated dozens of pieces. Take a look:
Often, in the wake of his attacks, the Splasher also leaves wheat-pasted screeds, attacking the streetartists as tools of capital, calling their work a "fetishized action of banality" and "a representation of the most vulgar kind: an alienated commodity":
Several people who we know in the New York graffiti community urged us not to cover the Splasher at all, saying that it would only encourage him to destroy more work-- but his project does raise some interesting questions that seem worth considering. First, to what extent is his basic premise correct-- are most streetartists spoiled children of the (white) bourgeoisie? Is their work just a leading sign of gentrification? And second, can a project that consists of destroying other people's work itself be considered art? After all, burning down a museum would rightly be called a crime. Is this? Before you answer, maybe it's best to read up on the Splasher-- here are some links from around the web.
FlowerFaceKillah on the Splasher
GowanusLounge on the Splasher, and a followup post
Curbed on the Splasher
Streetsy pix of the splasher
I'm Not Saying on the Splasher, with a gallery of Splasher shots
and a similar project, StreetArtBlows.
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so, throwing paint on someone else's paint on someone else's property is not art?
Take a stand, dobkin!
YAY SPLASHER!
HAHAHAHAHAH
Apparently someone is not to impressed with all that "street art."
NNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Their ecstasy is without content
this is kind of like watching 2 retarded kids have a rap battle.
lol @ corky, you made me laugh.
at least someone's willing to admit celebrity street artists are as lame a development as celebrity chefs.
It's a pretty fucking safe bet that the "splasher" is definitely a "spoiled child of the white bourgeoisie." Street artists aren't the establishment-- they're the grassroots. If this guy is so anti- street art, he should be happy to stand up and deface these murals right in front of the faces of the artists, not hide behind grad school-dropout jargonistic fliers with faux-threats. Sucka.
The splasher is a total schmuck, as evidenced by his inane, poorly written screeds and the fact that he puts glass in the wheatpaste he uses to glue them to the wall.
someone took his guy debord a little too literally. s/he should form a tight-knit group of splasher theoreticians and then go about denouncing them one by one. wouldn't that be cute?
Funny how these street artists go over graffiti pieces and nothing gets said. A few splashes of paint and the artist community is up in arms. How does that taste?
corky, you are my hero.
along with a headline, can we start putting the author of posts before the article so that it's easier to figure out which posts I want to avoid. I can't remember the last thing that Jake wrote that didn't just annoy me.
Re: "can a project that consists of destroying other people's work itself be considered art? After all, burning down a museum would rightly be called a crime."
It seems to me that the interesting thing about street art is precisely that it problematizes the notions of ownership that this question presumes. In other words, the burning of a museum would be a crime not against the works of art within the museum, but against the institution or individuals who own this museum. In other words, the crime is its violation of property rights. And it seems to me that what makes much of the best street art interesting (even if only in principle) is that it doesn't fit easily into conventional ideas of ownership.
I don't agree with destroying street art, but I DO agree that many prominent street artists are more interested in cashing out than changing society. Ditto to the fetishism of dada's objects, in particular Duchamp's urinal and stool pieces. I think it's the height of irony that pieces famous because of their deconstruction of the art viewing experience are now symbols of "fine art" printed on advertisments and the cover of museum brocheurs.
CAP!
I would also say that since street art is transitory, always about to be painted over with/covered up by something, it's better for it to be destroyed by someone with an artistic agenda than some disgruntled city councilmen.
look its,
just another street artist.
From the link:
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!1. Of course it's "fascist behavior." That's the only major insult Flower Face Killah could come up with. Somebody should ask him to define his terms, and then explain by what criteria the Splasher is a fascist.
2. Run-on sentences and comma splices annoy me.
this is just boring. university/museum art - which is basically dada and conceptual art's legacy - is just as institutional as street art and what goes on at basel. this person is probably just annoyed because their 100k MFA has only got them 24k a year assistant prof job.
Couldn't this retarded doofus at least splash some on the annoying and ubiquitous advertectures all over the city? At least do some good before the cops corner him and give him the baton beat down he deserves.
From the splasher poster:
"Revolutionary creativity does not shock or entertain the bourgeoisie, it destroys them."
I'm sorry. This is bullshit. Has any visual art ever destroyed any establishment anywhere? How exactly would that even happen?
I think the splasher overestimates the importance of visual art in shaping the world. Just a little.
what difference does it make who the artist is?
does 'white bourgeoisie' somehow make a statement illegitimate?
#23 dug
Of course it does. Have you no race- and class-consciousness? ;-)I cannot rule out the possibility that the Splasher's motivation arises less from deep-seated conviction than it does from deep-seated psychosis. (The rambling, screwball notices are the clue.)
I cannot rule out the possibility that the Splasher's motivation arises less from deep-seated conviction than it does from deep-seated psychosis. (The rambling, screwball notices are the clue.)
i like it. think the splasher may be brilliant or just a fuckup. either way, this has been a long time coming.
long live the neoist impulse of the splasher!
i like it. the splasher may just be the sound of a retard rapping but this has been a long time coming.
long live the neoist spledor of the splasher!
I like the splasher.
I actually agree wholeheartedly with the splasher
i like bunnies!
that jerk spit on Chico's mural of the pope (houston and B) from a year back. HE's GOING TO HELL!!! seriously, I was pissed.
big up to Aventura
To # 14:
You said "the interesting thing about street art is precisely that it problematizes the notions of ownership that (Jake's) question presumes."
Isn't The Splasher "problematizing" street artists' own notions of ownership? And art?
It also seems to me that street artists are reacting in exactly the same way that people opposed to street art react: "Don't give this issue any press. It'll only encourage whoever is behind it."
The bottom line is, street art is all about the creators' egos. And their sense of ownership.
Irony seems to be lost on the vast majority of glorified vandals posting in this thread.
Seems a silly protest though. He thinks street art is too corporate? His manifesto is so odd that it's hard to read and understand.
Yo Danny Eagle I picked up on your Cap reference... he was writing over shit in the early 80's! kids see Wild Style to check real old school bombing...
I think that he uses a Super Soaker instead of "splashing".
I've seen murals with dripping paint on them that are far too high for anyone to reach with a brush.
There HAS to be a better post to discuss the merit of street arts than over some dickless moron's pathetic attempt at attention to compensate for his failed artistic career. PLEASE have some roving gang of hipster artist catch and beat him to a pulp.
My bet is that he uses a Super Soaker instead of "splashing" with a brush.
I've seen murals with paint on them that are far too high for anyone to reach.
Iwould love to catch the moron and soak him with a Super Soaker, filled with Sulfuric Acid!
wouldn't it make more sense to splash billboards and print ads? how can street art possibly be worse than the constant proliferation of ads? i personally enjoy it when i see something on a wall that wasn't produced by an ad agency, and could care less if it was some rich kid that created it. if the splasher is going anti-corporate, he's hitting the wrong pieces.
and regardless, in his rally against big-name street artists, this coverage has made him nothing more than a big-name tagger. time to splash the splashes!
Its like Pollack and dada had a baby.
I like the use of colors.
I like the use of glass shards..= texture.
I am waiting for the Minimalist..
with his painted squares and use of greys..
omg! some guy is vandalizing that vandalism!
This thread should have ended at at post #11.
Posted by jake dobkin?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAAAAA.
the splasher should have an adjunct art critic/co-splasher to judge which graffiti works get splashed and which do not! some suck ass graffiti looks more interesting with splashes, some are good and can be left alone - no matter, that splasher is one badass muthafucka ya dig?
boring.
I gonna splash the splasher.... over the splashes.... with a different color
Go Splasher Go!
Jake, wasn't this story posted yesterday? Look at the comments. They pre-date today's resurrected posting.
Deja vu all over again?
The street art is beautiful - but it's on the street and and not protected - so anything goes - some may argue that a plain wall on a brick building is beautiful and street art ruins it - well the splasher has every right too vandalize the vandal...
So rich kids cannot be artists? If someone is deemed "privileged" and can afford to attend art school or live in a nice apartment they are not to be taken seriously? (note: I am not at all rich, just to squash the "Oh another rich kid" response) The only true art is created by people who live in dumpsters and drink paint thinner and have lost their families in industrial accidents and have to wear plastic bags for shoes? They know REAL LIFE. Now THAT'S punk rock! Get off your high horse, Splasher. The high horse you use to reach the 13' high subjects you splash.
Deja vu all over again....
ROCK ON
i love street art, but it's time the spoiled hipsters got a taste of reality. old school graffiti writers have to worry about their murals and production getting dissed and crossed out by toys constantly-- why should so-called 'street artists' get any preferential treatment? that kind of attitude draws a distinction between high and low street art, which is exactly the kind of bullshit that most artists would claim to be subverting. welcome to the streets.
Keep going splasher. Maybe these grafitti vandals will get the message. They vandalize, now they are getting their own medicine back. Best way to stop this shit.
I'll buy you the paint.
To #33:
You ask (rhetorically, of course, but I'll answer to it nonetheless): "Isn't The Splasher 'problematizing' street artists' own notions of ownership? And art?"
I think you misunderstood my point, or that I didn't make myself as clear as I thought I did.
What I'm trying to say is that street art -- in many, if not all, of its manifestations -- takes as one of its operating principles the idea that ownership is fraught with complexity, and that the rights involved intersect, often uncomfortably, with those of the public passing by a particular wall (or privately owned walls in general). This assumption, which has both merits and drawbacks, necessarily attaches itself as well to the work of art. Inasmuch as it constitutes a discourse, so to speak, it subjects itself, by virtue of its theoretical underpinnings and assumptions to what we might call "written" response. And, of course, there are a gamut of possible responses, one of which might include wheat-pasting manifestoes and splattering paint.
This, of course, applies doubly for an art form that is, by its very nature, transitory, inasmuch as most of it is destined to be painted over by the city anyway.
Furthermore, my point was to comment on the Gothamist's (logically flawed) comparison of the Splatterer's actions to the burning down of a museum.
Oops. Meant to add the following to the last sentence of post #57: My point was neither to endorse the Splasher, nor to denounce him, but rather to suggest that the logic of street art (such as I understand it) would seem to allow for such a response.
Also -- for "Splatterer" in the final paragraph of #57, please read "Splasher."
Eyeroll- first of all, I'm not a man as you assumed, I am all woman. Second, here's some historical context for this kind of anti-art fascism. Oh,and if my run on sentences, etc. annoy you, just go away, no one's making you look at my flickr page.
n 1937, Nazi officials purged German museums of works the Party considered to be degenerate. From the thousands of works removed, 650 were chosen for a special exhibit of Entartete Kunst. The exhibit opened in Munich and then traveled to eleven other cities in Germany and Austria. In each installation, the works were poorly hung and surrounded by graffiti and hand written labels mocking the artists and their creations. Over three million visitors attended making it the first "blockbuster" exhibition.
More recently, the Taliban in Afghanistan destroyed thousands of works of art, including including two 2,000 year old 175 foot tall statues of Buddha, because the art depicted human figures, which the fanatic extremist Taliban religious view doesn't allow.
These might seem like extreme examples, but to me, the fascist actions of the Nazis and the Taliban are no different from the fascist actions of Zack the hater, only the scale differs.
#59 flower face killah
A lone wacko vs. a totalitarian government is more than a difference in scale.
#60
Nitpick all you want, he uses the same tactics as the nazis and the taliban, the comparison is apt.
"...are most streetartists spoiled children of the (white) bourgeoisie? Is their work just a leading sign of gentrification? " Come on , man...we know better...
And in reponse to the splashing paint around issue...last time i checked the streets were public property... everyone who puts their work on the street whether graffiti or street art gets "burned" (or "splashed" in this case) so the artists will deal with it & the publicity anyone gets from going over "a bigger name" is still publicity...
inspire
#61
Fascists destroyed art. Splasher destroyed art. Therefore, Splasher is a fascist.Your comparison uses the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent.
If he's so concerned about commodification, a far more appropriate target would be the hundreds of huge advertising posters plastered all over the plywood constructions fences surrounding the glass towers and ugly condo buildings that are springing up in all over Williamsburg. That's where the real money is.
eyeroll;
thats not all there is to the argument. the splashers manifestos are drawn from the politics of 1970's ultraleft-to-fascist art critics.
He's clearly not concerned with the commodification of commodities, flower face. He's concerned with the commodification of art.
Street art IS meant to be destroyed. The splasher destroyed the street art, thereby enabling it to be art. If art is in opposition, the splasher is right, but he is validating the work he destroys and at the same time validating the necessity and timeliness of his own work (by destroying the things that we stopped paying attention to).
To my mind, this a cyclone in a soda bottle as he is replacing something that is valueless with something that is equally valueless. In any case, this is absolutely not deserving of a comparison to the Nazis or the taliban. In fact, throwing the word fascist around about others when they don't agree with you is the first thing real fascists do.
I'm also with James on this one...
Re:66
"He's concerned with the commodification of art.
Let him go to Chelsea then, go into the galleries where paintings sell for thousands and millions, and try throwing paint on them. Much as I disagree with Tony Shafrazi's attack on Picasso, at least he had the cojones to do it right in front of people.
"In fact, throwing the word fascist around about others when they don't agree with you is the first thing real fascists do."
Ha ha ha ha ha-Do you notice that you yourself are calling me a fascist because you don't agree with me?