Black Mark's Women of Paste stirred Facebook debate about gender, identity and assumption. I was willing my 'smart' phone to load the bloody notifications faster. For those who haven't followed the Fb thread, the comments on his post are equally compelling. I can't fully articulate a position on the 'gendering' of street art because my position shifts daily and I would probably disagree with myself tomorrow. I can't speak with authority about the history of women in street art either, but recommend Googling it and reading Street Girls: The rise of Female Street Art in Cat Fight Magazine.
In Fitzroy in my experience that admittedly commences in the 00's street artists have invariably bombed in waves. Their methodology for the most part tends to be a combination of tagging, pasting, throw ups and pieces. Capping and slicing is generally par for the course and as people know, right now, this a bit of a contentious issue. Gender calls are hard to make without making assumptions, and assumptions are impossible to uphold given that they rely on typecasting.
I am guilty of making assumptions about class, and maintain that those more financially endowed will have the capacity to produce pieces that those without will not. However I don't believe money, gender or ethnography solely determine motivation, influence opportunity or affect the impression an artist makes. As Snyder observed when he visited us recently, Australia has developed its own culture outside of the American context, for example.
So getting back to Black Mark's question, why are women attracted to paste ups, I can't answer without getting an uncomfortable tightness in my throat, and without saying that (1) you cannot assume the gender of the artists to which he has referred, (2) you cannot assume that it is all that they do and (3) his selection is not a current depiction of who is doing what.
I mean no disrespect to Black Mark, for whom I have very high regard and with an uncomfortable eagerness I offer the following compilation of 'male identified' street artists who paste, un-gendered street artists who paste and chicks who do more than paste...
Barek, above - whilst alas he resides so far away, his creatures have brightened Fitzroy when opportunity has arisen. Below, whilst not currently proliferating, Flake with his offsider Durban Poison have pasted awesome large scale images
S-701-a and Ruskidd continue to do amazing things for us using amongst other mediums, the trusty paste up
Vandal Spruce once famously covered this building below in skulls. He is joined by a few newer artists, such as Noican. Gender not identified.
Above Precious Little, a Snyder
Above, one of my all time favs Nufevah, below him Burg, gender not assumed
Below, a chick with an aerosol erection, and a hot tag
In Fitzroy in my experience that admittedly commences in the 00's street artists have invariably bombed in waves. Their methodology for the most part tends to be a combination of tagging, pasting, throw ups and pieces. Capping and slicing is generally par for the course and as people know, right now, this a bit of a contentious issue. Gender calls are hard to make without making assumptions, and assumptions are impossible to uphold given that they rely on typecasting.
I am guilty of making assumptions about class, and maintain that those more financially endowed will have the capacity to produce pieces that those without will not. However I don't believe money, gender or ethnography solely determine motivation, influence opportunity or affect the impression an artist makes. As Snyder observed when he visited us recently, Australia has developed its own culture outside of the American context, for example.
So getting back to Black Mark's question, why are women attracted to paste ups, I can't answer without getting an uncomfortable tightness in my throat, and without saying that (1) you cannot assume the gender of the artists to which he has referred, (2) you cannot assume that it is all that they do and (3) his selection is not a current depiction of who is doing what.
I mean no disrespect to Black Mark, for whom I have very high regard and with an uncomfortable eagerness I offer the following compilation of 'male identified' street artists who paste, un-gendered street artists who paste and chicks who do more than paste...
Vandal Spruce once famously covered this building below in skulls. He is joined by a few newer artists, such as Noican. Gender not identified.
Above Precious Little, a Snyder
Below, a chick with an aerosol erection, and a hot tag
And below, perhaps the paste up artist of all street artists, Rone
9 comments:
Cool response. The anonymous nature of street art means that unless your tag states a gender it isn't relevant. I'm still happy to have posted it just to have provoked all this discussion.
Yeah totally, and that seems to be everyone's thoughts (Ie glad you posted it, great debate following from it). Thanks !
heres a differant side to look at.. the way i see it is that most women that do street art do it to get a rep and when they have one and are in gallerys they tend to stop doing things on the street.. its like oh my art isnt anywhere i better do some advertiseing , sweet im famous stop doing stuff on the streets.. urban cake lady??? but saying that i know women that paint just because they love it..
Hi anonymous I know totally what demographic or genre or whatever u mean but I don't think that is gender based, I think it's a case of that being one 'movement' or motivation, potentially, for some, but do they come back to the street ? Yeah I don't know. I read a great post somewhere a couple of years back about that. Yeah I don't think that's a male or female pattern. I certainly think that there is a greater potential for that particularly with the immediacy of 'fame' through social media, combined with the current 'fashionableness' of street art to a broader audience. Then we could go down the path of what is legitimate versus not??? I shall quote Lush "what you have is this whole miserable subculture'. An interesting question to ask would be what value do you place on the different people's motivation? Does it make it less or more legitimate ? Also whose perspective? I suspect if the artists audience is the art world and 'customers' it is less exciting than an artist whose audience is other street artists or even just themselves. Interesting!!!
very interesting reply!!..i guess you can call some people strickly street artist with gallery on the side... or gallery artist with street art on the side.. i guess in my perspective a legit street artist dose art on the street not matter how famous or successfull they have became...but yeah your right i dont think its just women :)about women doing street art i think theres a romance side to it..because i always think about what they look like? do you agree?
The "Lush" quote is actually from Style Wars by Skeme's momma.
@anonymous yeah I definitely always wonder what the artists look like although it's getting harder to find people you don't meet somewhere along the line, which is a really funny thing in itself. Things used to be so anonymous!
@Mr Arty thanks for the info man
And it makes me laugh that I mis quoted as Lush has Avery clever way of exposing dickheads like me haha
And it makes me laugh that I mis quoted as Lush has Avery clever way of exposing dickheads like me haha
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