Channel 4’s hapless attempt to appropriate street art and be ‘down with the kids’ is wrong on so many levels, it is hard to know where to begin. From the rigged London competition, endorsed but in the end curiously not judged, by none other than the self-styled ‘Big Poppa Ser’, to the cringe-worthy video clips used to promote the ‘street summer’, it is hard to imagine a more ill-conceived and poorly executed exercise in cool hunting, to borrow a term from Naomi Klein.
Ostensibly all about ‘celebrating British street culture’, leaving aside the question of just what this is and whether a public-service broadcaster should be celebrating it at all, the initiative would seem to be more part of a coordinated interpellation of something which has thus far evaded capture. It is about taming and dominating a mode of expression, however articulate or inarticulate it may be, in a feckless attempt to assimilate it into the capitalist system.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in videos used to promote the ‘competition’. Let us briefly consider two of the worst offenders, starting with London. Cue the trendy drum and bass music; the camera cuts to a shot of Darren Cullen (‘Big Poppa’) loitering casually in front of two decommissioned tube cars. Leaving aside the fact that his Graffiti Kings website is about as close as one could get to a textbook definition of the term ‘sell-out’, his play-by-the-rules speech dutifully attempts to lull viewers into abandoning illegality and sleepless nights in train yards in favour of a bien pensant, conformist approach which perhaps owes much to the hypocrisy that lies behind his own reinvention as a legitimate business man. Cullen does “graffiti for a living”, so he tells us, and those interested in following in his footsteps—and here let us note that he openly tells of his own exploits on the wrong side of the law—are paternally advised to steer well clear of the tracks.
Ventsa, for his part, fares no better. In a three and a half minute homage to English hipster fauxhemia, complete with its own quirky soundtrack, the viewer can sit back and watch as he leads us to the Custard Factory, “home to over five hundred independent artists, illustrators and small creative businesses [based] around the arts industry”. Therein lies the rub, specifically the lexicon of businesses and industries. In a certain sense, the term ‘creative industries’, so eagerly embraced by New Labour in the era of Cool Britannia, was in part an attempt at the commoditisation of creativity along the same lines as the neoliberal ideals of its predecessor, Thatcherism. Like all other aspects of life, creativity becomes predominantly governed by the rubric of economic value, subsumed into the great capitalist tradition. For a bankrupt country no longer able to manufacture tangible goods and services of real use to people, manufacturing creativity seems like an easy way out.
The problem however, is that such a concept of creativity is flimsy and ephemeral at best, and the resulting art, or artistic commodity, is largely devoid of any substantially grounded social context or meaningful engagement with the episteme in which it is situated. “When it comes to my art”, Ventsa explains in a manifesto which reads like an A-level art student’s personal statement, “I don’t just work with graffiti lettering, I work with all different types of genres of work, including typography, graphic design, illustration, characters, scenery and backgrounds”. He then goes on to explain just what he is looking for in the competition: “Something that’s well thought out and presented, with different forms of lettering, of course, but from every other genre mixed in there”. Listening to his nebulous description, one could be forgiven for thinking that he is not really sure what he is looking for at all. And neither are we. So much for artistic vision, and perhaps this explains why, as he himself concedes, “when it comes to street art, the Europeans are leading the way.”
Maybe this is overly harsh on Ser and Ventsa, perhaps it is cruel to single them out, but by choosing to appear on national television, both make themselves easy targets and fair game. Speaking out for what purports to be an art form is a position of considerable responsibility and as such they deserve to be held to account.
Enough of the process however, what of the result? This is where things really start to go awry in a catalogue of cock-ups which reveals the ill-conceived nature of the whole enterprise to the glaring light of day. It is not a street artist but Britain’s most prolific vandal, recently sentenced to twenty-seven months in prison for his crimes, who wins the competition; Poppa Ser’s appointment as judge is duly rescinded and a mysterious last minute entry from Shaunlee01245, about as far removed from any definition of street art as possible, scoops the prize; finally, the entrants’ artwork is markedly absent from the resulting street summer advert.
The emperor has no clothes! This shameless one hundred second pastiche of all things ‘urban’ is beset by a glaring contradiction which has undermined the enterprise from the very start and around which it now begins to collapse. Back to our first video: “Too clean man, too clean”, laments Big Poppa as a pristine tube train rolls past in the background, before then going on to explain how distraught he would be if he knew his own kids were at work in the yards. So is Cullen endorsing illegal graffiti or advising against it? The message is confusing.
Nor is it any clearer in the advert which depicts an urban streetscape ripe with antisocial behaviour and elements of petty-criminality. From graffiti artists spraypainting shop fronts and pickpockets, all the way through to BMX riders and acrobats jumping off and onto the roofs of parked cars, there is even a group of hole-digging workies with a pneumatic drill thrown in for good measure, as if nothing could be more emblematic of the twenty-first century urban milieu. You name it, it’s is in there, and the combined effect is to suggest that it is hip to be on the wrong side of the law, that a generous sprinkling of petty-crime—although nothing too serious, lest we evoke the spectre of Justin Rollins—can help to spice up the urban environment and reach out to those disenfranchised kids. At best the result is a tacit endorsement and confusing legitimation of antisocial behaviour.
This is the paradox that will always be inherent to any attempt to assimilate and tame something which has always been profoundly anti-establishment. You can’t be for street art and against breaking the law, and society can never assimilate what is at its heart—from Banksy to Tox and in spite of their differences—a response to a profound sense of dissatisfaction felt by certain sections of its members. In terms of the former, his work is now assiduously coveted, enshrined in Perspex, the message being that if it is hip or arty enough, defacing public property is somehow okay; in terms of the latter, whatever Daniel Halpin’s artistic merits (and here perhaps we should ask Ben Flynn to clarify things for us in his capacity as expert witness) his mode of expression posses a sense of integrity and firmly-rooted social commitment that is present in all but a small fraction of street art. Perhaps this was why Halpin would always be the rightful winner of the London competition, and the one to lay bare the shameless hypocrisy on which the whole sorry enterprise was founded.
Down with the kids
Ostensibly all about ‘celebrating British street culture’, leaving aside the question of just what this is and whether a public-service broadcaster should be celebrating it at all, the initiative would seem to be more part of a coordinated interpellation of something which has thus far evaded capture. It is about taming and dominating a mode of expression, however articulate or inarticulate it may be, in a feckless attempt to assimilate it into the capitalist system.
Nowhere is this more obvious than in videos used to promote the ‘competition’. Let us briefly consider two of the worst offenders, starting with London. Cue the trendy drum and bass music; the camera cuts to a shot of Darren Cullen (‘Big Poppa’) loitering casually in front of two decommissioned tube cars. Leaving aside the fact that his Graffiti Kings website is about as close as one could get to a textbook definition of the term ‘sell-out’, his play-by-the-rules speech dutifully attempts to lull viewers into abandoning illegality and sleepless nights in train yards in favour of a bien pensant, conformist approach which perhaps owes much to the hypocrisy that lies behind his own reinvention as a legitimate business man. Cullen does “graffiti for a living”, so he tells us, and those interested in following in his footsteps—and here let us note that he openly tells of his own exploits on the wrong side of the law—are paternally advised to steer well clear of the tracks.
Ventsa, for his part, fares no better. In a three and a half minute homage to English hipster fauxhemia, complete with its own quirky soundtrack, the viewer can sit back and watch as he leads us to the Custard Factory, “home to over five hundred independent artists, illustrators and small creative businesses [based] around the arts industry”. Therein lies the rub, specifically the lexicon of businesses and industries. In a certain sense, the term ‘creative industries’, so eagerly embraced by New Labour in the era of Cool Britannia, was in part an attempt at the commoditisation of creativity along the same lines as the neoliberal ideals of its predecessor, Thatcherism. Like all other aspects of life, creativity becomes predominantly governed by the rubric of economic value, subsumed into the great capitalist tradition. For a bankrupt country no longer able to manufacture tangible goods and services of real use to people, manufacturing creativity seems like an easy way out.
The problem however, is that such a concept of creativity is flimsy and ephemeral at best, and the resulting art, or artistic commodity, is largely devoid of any substantially grounded social context or meaningful engagement with the episteme in which it is situated. “When it comes to my art”, Ventsa explains in a manifesto which reads like an A-level art student’s personal statement, “I don’t just work with graffiti lettering, I work with all different types of genres of work, including typography, graphic design, illustration, characters, scenery and backgrounds”. He then goes on to explain just what he is looking for in the competition: “Something that’s well thought out and presented, with different forms of lettering, of course, but from every other genre mixed in there”. Listening to his nebulous description, one could be forgiven for thinking that he is not really sure what he is looking for at all. And neither are we. So much for artistic vision, and perhaps this explains why, as he himself concedes, “when it comes to street art, the Europeans are leading the way.”
Maybe this is overly harsh on Ser and Ventsa, perhaps it is cruel to single them out, but by choosing to appear on national television, both make themselves easy targets and fair game. Speaking out for what purports to be an art form is a position of considerable responsibility and as such they deserve to be held to account.
Enough of the process however, what of the result? This is where things really start to go awry in a catalogue of cock-ups which reveals the ill-conceived nature of the whole enterprise to the glaring light of day. It is not a street artist but Britain’s most prolific vandal, recently sentenced to twenty-seven months in prison for his crimes, who wins the competition; Poppa Ser’s appointment as judge is duly rescinded and a mysterious last minute entry from Shaunlee01245, about as far removed from any definition of street art as possible, scoops the prize; finally, the entrants’ artwork is markedly absent from the resulting street summer advert.
The emperor has no clothes! This shameless one hundred second pastiche of all things ‘urban’ is beset by a glaring contradiction which has undermined the enterprise from the very start and around which it now begins to collapse. Back to our first video: “Too clean man, too clean”, laments Big Poppa as a pristine tube train rolls past in the background, before then going on to explain how distraught he would be if he knew his own kids were at work in the yards. So is Cullen endorsing illegal graffiti or advising against it? The message is confusing.
Nor is it any clearer in the advert which depicts an urban streetscape ripe with antisocial behaviour and elements of petty-criminality. From graffiti artists spraypainting shop fronts and pickpockets, all the way through to BMX riders and acrobats jumping off and onto the roofs of parked cars, there is even a group of hole-digging workies with a pneumatic drill thrown in for good measure, as if nothing could be more emblematic of the twenty-first century urban milieu. You name it, it’s is in there, and the combined effect is to suggest that it is hip to be on the wrong side of the law, that a generous sprinkling of petty-crime—although nothing too serious, lest we evoke the spectre of Justin Rollins—can help to spice up the urban environment and reach out to those disenfranchised kids. At best the result is a tacit endorsement and confusing legitimation of antisocial behaviour.
This is the paradox that will always be inherent to any attempt to assimilate and tame something which has always been profoundly anti-establishment. You can’t be for street art and against breaking the law, and society can never assimilate what is at its heart—from Banksy to Tox and in spite of their differences—a response to a profound sense of dissatisfaction felt by certain sections of its members. In terms of the former, his work is now assiduously coveted, enshrined in Perspex, the message being that if it is hip or arty enough, defacing public property is somehow okay; in terms of the latter, whatever Daniel Halpin’s artistic merits (and here perhaps we should ask Ben Flynn to clarify things for us in his capacity as expert witness) his mode of expression posses a sense of integrity and firmly-rooted social commitment that is present in all but a small fraction of street art. Perhaps this was why Halpin would always be the rightful winner of the London competition, and the one to lay bare the shameless hypocrisy on which the whole sorry enterprise was founded.
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