3 ms·
From the article: [Katsu] pioneered the fire extinguisher spray can, which has permitted him to expand the scale of his art by orders of magnitude. He famously
by mturmon 13y ago
From the article:
[Katsu] pioneered the fire extinguisher spray can, which has permitted him to expand the scale of his art by orders of magnitude. He famously demoed it at "Art in the Streets," a 2012 show at the the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, when, without invitation, he left his multi-story calling card on the side of the museum.
The part of the story that is not mentioned is that this show was very well-attended (it's graffiti! it's art! it's hip!), but very controversial in an LA art world that is quite accepting of out-of-the-box concepts. This show and shows like it precipitated the resignation of all the artists on the MOCA board, and then caused the departure of the museum director, Jeffrey Deitch, who had championed the show.
The reason this is worth mentioning is that the article is playing in to the same rather thoughtlessly "transgressive" narrative about graffiti being, in itself, a serious contribution to the art world. What we actually have here is an interesting tech demo of novel ways to apply spray paint. But, what is the artistic contribution of this work? What is this cultural intervention on the part of Katsu trying to accomplish? (Or put another way, "Why are you calling this art? What cultural effect do you want to achieve?")
All he talks about in the interview is (a) some rather tired reasoning about the paint effects offered by the new method of application, and (b) some uninteresting claims about reclaiming the drone in the name of artistic expression.
This is hip and meme-abundant, but I don't see how it seriously contributes to culture.
- nrser 13y agoi think that's what's special about graffiti. it has a heart of damage, of destruction; of disrespect. it has undeniable artistic elements to it, but it remains very difficult for people, even those in the 'quite accepting out-of-the-box' world of the LA art scene, to reconcile. they invited a vandal and he vandalized. i think that's kind of beautiful in a way. "why didn't he respect our space, our praise, our attention, our money? why didn't he respect that he was being given something 'bigger' and 'better' and 'more' than his petty world of crime?" because fuck you. graffiti is fuck you. still. regardless of recent attempts to embrace it, recognize it, retain it, reform it from the art and corporate worlds. it's attractive and interesting and 'hip' to these people, but they struggle with it. i remember reading a graf mag sometime in the 90s, and a rather amazing and accomplished artist said something to the effect of "i think what's most important is damage. everyone can do damage, regardless of skill." i throughly rejected this as a young kid looking for an artistic outlet, but many years later, after becoming a part of the corporate world learning more about art and business and society and money, i think he had something. i think maybe that is what's important. it's not art that everyone can call art, even some people that are trying really hard.
- mturmon 13y agoBut this (http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573/text-summary http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/duchamp-fountain-t07573/...) was 100 years ago. And Duchamp was quite articulate in thumbing his nose at the establishment and the notion of the object ("because fuck you"). Keith Haring was 35 years ago (and with more visual creativity, and something to say). How does this continue that line? Not very well. It's been done already, and better.
- colin_jack 13y agoI have to say I was expecting a bit more than him just spraying a big dirty tag on the side of the building. Pretty lame and costly for the museum to deal with.