Antonio Zaya by NATO. Courtesy Martinez Gallery.
Hugo Martinez by Sue Parkhill. Courtesy Elle Magazine.
GETTING OVER/ GETTING UP by Ana Finel Honigman
Antonio Zaya and Hugo Martinez discuss graffiti, art, anarchy and activism
Hugo Martinez has been an impresario of the New York graffiti art community since the 1970s. While studying philosophy at City College in Manhattan in 1972, Puerto Rican-born Martinez founded the 'United Graffiti Artists,' an artist collective of graffiti writers who helped to shape the development of New York's graffiti scene. Martinez curated the first exhibition of art by established graffiti writers, and since then he has acted as director of a series of galleries devoted to graffiti art. Now he organizes roving exhibitions and installation projects at 'nomadic venues'.
Critic and curator Antonio Zaya, who was born and raised in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, was originally a Dadaist performance artist and poet living in Madrid until he relocated to the Costa Brava of Cataluña. He has acted as curator of the ARCO art fair in Madrid, the Havana Biennial and the Biennial of the Canary Islands. Since 1993, Zaya has also served as editorial director of Atlantica magazine, a quarterly art magazine focused on Latin America.
In 2002, Martinez organized an installation including kid-friendly work by an intergenerational group of graffiti writers entitled 'Graffiti 207: Art, Medicine and Design' as the entire internal décor of a pediatric clinic in Inwood, a predominantly Dominican neighborhood in Manhattan. The two doctors permanently working in the space, one of them a former graffiti writer, see more than 20,000 patients each year. 'Graffiti 207' was the first project accomplished by Pediatrics 2000, a collaborative medical group which includes Martinez, Zaya, the Dutch design team Marleen Kaptein and Stijn Roodnat, and graphic designer Melanie Van Haarren. Today, Pediatrics 2000 is developing a small hospital which will also function as an exhibition museum space.
Pediatrics 2000 demonstrates that graffiti and graffiti artists can create work that speaks to and for communities outside the recognized art world. As Zaya's and Martinez's writing about graffiti articulates, graffiti is often wrongly seen as the dirty, Dionysian little brother to a slicker, savvier art-world Apollo. Graffiti functions as a public autobiographical performance. It is like an on-going resume or life-story told through the history of physical co-ordinates. Paradoxically, while graffiti tags are often all about declaring 'I was here,' they are also about remaining anonymous except to a select group of fellow practitioners.
Graffiti remains controversial because it breaks social codes and creates a rupture between what is accepted as 'public' versus 'private' space. Even the sloppiest made mark forces an individual's identity onto communal or others' property. The most interesting issues surrounding graffiti arise when it technically can qualify as 'art' and yet its illegal presence in the urban environment still frightens and offends people.
Graffiti needs to transgress in order to function, and by the nature of its transgression it highlights social and political delineations. The issue then becomes whether graffiti itself is considered offensive by authority figures, or whether they are offended by the reminder that irreverent and often alienated groups exist who seek to claim rights over communal space.
Until September 3, 2006, the Brooklyn Museum is exhibiting a historical survey of graffiti. Concurrently with the show, Antonio Zaya has curated an exhibition, 'Brecht forum', at the Martinez Gallery of recent and early works by graffiti art's forefathers, also on view until 3 September.
Martinez and Zaya have written text and edited quotes by historical graffiti writers, police officers, politicians and academics to accompany almost 150 photographs taken by graffiti writer, NATO, of graffiti in Manhattan for Graffiti NYC, an historical survey of graffiti which will be published this fall by Prestel. For more info click here.
ANA FINEL HONIGMAN: Is graffiti or graffiti art defined by its aesthetics, its relationship to graffiti's sociological history or its illegality?
ANTONIO ZAYA: The three themes are inseparable and have a causal relationship. The graffiti aesthetic is as much inspired by its social context as it responds to its own illegality, and is a direct consequence of
its exclusion from the conventional art sphere, social marginalization and the muted right to expression. This has been continuously seen in the genre's political, economic and formal history over the past 36 years. Thus, graffiti's definition, as is the case for many other 20th-century artistic movements - be it Dada, Futurism, Surrealism, etc - can't fit within a single profile but instead a heterogeneous, eclectic and interdisciplinary construct.
HUGO MARTINEZ: Writing is defined by three things: invention (what does it introduce to
the culture), ups (how often the crime was perpetrated) and spots (which locations were chosen).
AFH: So, how does art by established graffiti writers change when transferred to a gallery or other legally sanctioned environment?
AZ: In most cases, the cost of that shift is like pearls to swine, changing nothing underneath. There are no established graffiti artists today. It is a contradiction in terms.
HM: On the street, trademark defines the work. There is a subtle interplay with 'generic' aesthetics and its power to redefine property as a vehicle of fame. Inside there is more time to appropriate 'art'.
AFH: How has the meaning and significance of graffiti changed since the aesthetic has become more accepted and commodified?
AZ: Despite militant opposition from certain sectors of the art world, not to mention the continued political oppression suffered as it spreads worldwide, graffiti has seen great development on both quantitative and qualitative levels, much of which can be observed only by studying the form's entire history. It's important to note that these changes have little to do with the acts of fraud that some work to support, spread and nurture, confusing us as to the nature of graffiti - a breed of fraud that is hardly
uncommon in the art world. Some, of course, attempt to impose the rules that should apply to the form, limiting it to the streets as if the artists were condemned to uniformity, impermanence and blind emulation of their own caricature. However, as far as social, political and legal aspects go, all graffiti's changes vanish in the face of repression.
HM: Felonious Graff hasn't been accepted or commodified; only the Uncle Toms have done this.
AFH: What do you mean by 'fraud'? Do you mean graphic designers and artists selling a look borrowed from graffiti without actually contributing to graffiti culture or earning their stripes on the streets?
HM: Fraud is all the gallery graff you saw in the '80s and the art school-fed narrative that pretends to be the real thing; all the zines that portrayed themselves as being representative of the movement when they were actually just paparazzi graff, all permission graff that portrays itself as part of the graffiti culture which is by definition not about permission. Museums that pass off legal writers as the real deal. Journalists and critics who accept that anyone who calls themselves a graffiti artist or paints letters on a canvas is writer.
AZ: I'm reminded of a film called F for Fake by Orson Welles. Some call appropriation 'theft'. What is so commonly exhibited as such is really a result of the culture of the streets. On the other hand, our culture is based on fraud even though it seems like it isn't. It's the same as someone in China or someone who doesn't represent a threat to businesses under protection of political powers. And that's exactly what this is about. In the eyes of the official powers, these artists are a problem because they imitate tactics that the empowered effect with impunity every day. It's an outrage if we consider that these youth specifically lack power and belong to castes that are destined either to extinction of to the service of the powers that they themselves will never have access to.
AFH: Who are typical collectors who buy work from the Martinez gallery?
AZ: There isn't any defined profile. Museums, private collectors, artists, writers and young people are increasingly interested in acquiring this work, or in including permanent installations of this anarchistic and dissident work in their daily environments.
HM: Writers are anti-bourgeoisie by the nature of their political manifestation. Why would someone wealthy invest money in work that steals back their property?
AFH: But the work is for sale, and I imagine it gets sold, so, are most of the collectors of graffiti art from the Martinez gallery native New Yorkers, or are you seeing more interest for international, private or institutional collectors, like, say, Japanese collectors interested in American street culture?
AZ: There is no single profile. Some are looking for advice and others just want to buy hot air.
HM: The collectors' market was duped in the '80s by Janis, Yaki Kornblit, Wim Beeren [Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam], Alanna Heiss [PS1], Rudolf Zwirner, Patty Astor and all the curators and critics who promoted faux graff. Peter Schjeldahl was the only critic who had the balls to side with the progenitors against the '80s junk. In 1985 we waged a campaign to expose all the so-called graffiti artists and post-graffitists works as patent narratives, visiting every Kunsthalle, Kunstmuseum, Kunstverein and gallery in Europe. When all the major collectors and serious academics realized they'd been sold blackface, they abandoned the subject all together.
AFH: What qualities compel you to want to represent an artist or exhibit their work?
AZ: A connection between life and the work is essential, although we are at times snared by the pressures of our professional and formative impulses, exceeding our own rules of engagement. As a result, our selections are occasionally influenced by purely aesthetic considerations. In any event, we always consider the criminal records of artists, which in their world legitimize the hierarchy and relevance of each individual.
HM: I would agree, though in some rare cases we have to support the writers who show the same courage by delving into areas that are unacceptable to the rest of the culture.
AFH: Are you more inclined to want to exhibit work by artists whose backgrounds are closer to graffiti's political and social roots than, say, a white art student's 'conceptual graffiti'?
HM: I'm not interested in promoting the pedigree of the privileged class. They can see their offspring in every commercial quack's vitrine, in all the art departments and in all their art books and magazines.
AZ: We're not interested in aesthetics, if that's what you're referring to. We're only interested in discourse. The tools used for expression are irrelevant. Currently, art schools teach artists to 'create' work for the cemeteries of 'art'. Life is unimportant in that filtered context. Not even in art itself. We have forgotten the concentration camps; that's why we are rebuilding them. We have forgotten about ethics at the service of aesthetics. Crime has been made an institution, another of the fine arts (cf: Thomas de Quincey). We are ritualistically living what Borges called 'the universal history of infamy' and we have been vaccinated and anesthetized in preparation.
AFH: How have you noticed graffiti writers from the seventies reacting to the current demographics and aesthetic concerns of younger writers?
AZ: Competitiveness is a central element in the development of all these artists, as much or more so than it is between more conventional artists fighting to get their foot in the door. In any case, history is history and its protagonists remain protagonists. But successive generations live among the legends, taking succor from them. Perhaps there is more complicity, solidarity and recognition in their circle; but that same competitive spirit is liable to lead to scars or worse. Graffiti artists suffer their form of expression literally in the skin.
HM: Would you ask Gagosian that same question?
AFH: Yes, I would. I think it is always interesting how artists think about and react to art history. How aware and respectful are younger writers of the forefathers of the movement?
HM: I think we are seeing traditional Hispanic and Black culture's values permeate mainstream US culture. There is no longer a generation gap in graff. Old School and New School steal from, feed and prod each other. They are all part of the same culture.
AZ: Just as much as is convenient to them; they hang out, they relate to each other, they make references and allude to one another.
AFH: Why isn't more graffiti overtly political in its message?
AZ: Although some writers in fact employ an explicitly political language in their work, it would in general be redundant for an illegal, excluded, dissident and persecuted movement to be debated only in terms of race, social marginalization and political legality. These are already in evidence by nature of the work's aesthetic, social, political and ideological resistance. In any event, many of these artists only aspire to continued existence, to visibility and to the recognition of their form of expression on equal footing. They feel dispossessed of their most fundamental rights.
HM: There is nothing more political than the conversion of private property to the artist's definition of self.
AFH: Right, but haven't these fundamental issues already been fully deconstructed and discussed enough in mass media and academic forums? Now that graffiti's inherent activist message is better understood, shouldn't it be used as more of a message platform for specific political concerns?
HM: There is no medium more specific than real property. The conversion is more important than all the deconstructions, discussions and academic forums.
AZ: The obvious difference here is that while we theorize and lower ourselves into hell for a spell in order to 'get informed', never doing so permanently; as Deleuze would say, they live inside that exquisite porcelain, in the style of Artaud. It's quite lovely to see bulls from the box seats; there's nothing at stake. But they are playing with their own lives, prison, exclusion . . .
AFH: With that said, do you feel the art-world has fulfilled the promise of its initial interest in graffiti?
HM: They were never interested in graff. They were only interested in the minstrel show; to be able to see posers acting out the parts of blue collar criminals in the cozy privacy of their salons.
AZ: In part, through appropriation and cannibalization; but it's unfortunate that the sources aren't credited, and it doesn't seem honest to look the other way before the shameful situation that this movement suffers at all times. For that matter, only the publishing industry continues to show an interest in the development and stability of this prohibited artistic phenomenon, and that's only for clearly economic reasons based on demand, and only carried out in a generally unprofessional manner.
AFH: Why do you think certain artists like Basquiat and Keith Haring have become part of mainstream art-history whereas others, like many of those you showed in the seventies, have not?
HM: Fuck 'em. Basquiat was a fake COBRA artist, Scharf a circus pyrotechnician and Haring a shower curtain designer. Who cares about so-called 'mainstream art-history' or what their little club accepts? Graff is the art of the masses and is much more important, mainstream, real and historical than anything else out there today. Why are we still lumping together the 'graffiti artists' as 'others' in contrast to these
individuals? Why aren't we looking at the individual writers in juxtaposition to these phonies? Why are we referring to these 'others' as an undifferentiated mass? That's the real question we should be asking.
AZ: Because they turned off their discourse; it was a compromise, a kind of trade, in exchange for money and fame they stopped being themselves. This is called amnesia. Disarmed and without memory, they were easy prey before the vampires. In exchange, they offered them their glory of a borrowed dream that was nothing more than a mirage.
AFH: Assuming the art-world is also sub-culture, like academia or Goth-club kids, how does fame within the graffiti subculture relate to an artist's market value or potential interest to a wider audience?
AZ: These artists are hardly ignorant of the flights of ego in an information society, nor of the savage neoconservative imperialism of our day, yet have they scarcely enough time to consider their own survival in the streets or in prison. Many are contented trying their luck against the injustices, generalized corruption and white lies that rule in this age of infamy, contented to resist their would-be oppressors. But they of course aspire to an audience, to fame, to legitimate value, just as all of us
mortal beings aspire.
HM: I'd add that there is a celebration of the power of art and culture in progress. The wider audience is creating these artists; and a more inclusive movement is finally redefining the entire purpose of art. Look, the 'art world' is run by and for the wealthy, a truly insignificant minority when we are talking about the future of important work. The collectors are only interested in investments and are anxious to falsify these commodities if necessary. They are the only true audience in the so-called mainstream, the arbiters of their own flavor. In graff the decisions are made by a collective conscience within their own Sherwood Forest. The rich, the institutions they finance, the galleries they buy from, the schools they send their kids to and all their edifices are fodder to graff culture.
ANA FINEL HONIGMAN is a critic and PhD candidate in art history at Oxford University.
Translation for Antonio Zaya by Ken Bensinger.
NATO sticker. Courtesy Martinez Gallery.
KEZ 5, from Graffiti NYC (Prestel, forthcoming)
RATE installation shot. Courtesy Martinez Gallery.
COCO 144 installation. Courtesy Martinez Gallery.
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