Emma Rouillon advises wannabe artists who are aiming for street.
Street-art is officially cool but there’s no need to wear black skinny jeans and sunglasses indoors. The real hip thing is writing hard-hitting statements on walls and heavy anti-capitalist messages in the streets around Brick Lane – all because you have to express your angst.
Immediately.
Provocative street-art was first associated with American gang culture, i.e. those angry kids in Camden, New Jersey, ‘vandalising’ public property.
But it was never that simple, and now street-art has evolved into something more complicated, with rules and regulations requiring considerable self-control on the part of its practitioners, such as:
1) Never write over someone else’s work
True. Not cool.
2) A political message has to be conveyed
Which doesn’t mean that the message has to be ‘armed struggle’ against every little thing that’s wrong with government policy. Instead, look at it this way: every place in the world has its word to say. When a country goes wrong and there’s not much that can be done about it, art can be the nearest thing to a solution.
In Bristol, Banksy himself opted to challenge Britain’s narrow view of homosexuality with his Kissing Policemen. Meanwhile in East London’s Hanbury Street near Whitechapel, the artist Best|Ever – of course it’s a pseudonym! – has painted a colourful heap of bones and flesh (body parts of dogs and humans). The point was to deplore the situation of homeless people in East London, and his piece was done in collaboration with a charity that helps homeless and vulnerable young people, Street Stories. Prints of this work have been selling well, and the proceeds are used to help homeless youth.
3) The rule is you have to break the rules (while you still can)
Street-art is illegal. Painting or drawing on property you do not own, is a crime. That’s why there is an edge to doing it. But how long for? With East London councils largely giving up on cleaning it off (nowadays they are more likely to treat it as a tourist attraction), street-art may already be coming in from the cold.
4) Remember this is art – not just slogans
If you only want send a message, do it by text. But if you want to join the major league, you need to follow on from what important artists are doing in their art. In some ways this last rule is the most important – if it’s not well-formed, if it doesn’t at least look good, if it isn’t in touch with the tradition of painting and drawing (even if only to break away from that tradition), then you should have stayed at home.