From the Publisher
Graffiti, must be exhibited where the most people can best view it. That is why it was originally and still is painted on subway cars, regional trains; on the Palisades leading out of New York City, on the Berlin Wall that once separated East and West, Communist and Capitalist nations; on the West Bank Barrier wall in Bethlehem, separating the Israeli from the Palestinian enclave, (faced by the Walked Off Hotel, decorated with Banksy murals, advertised as the hotel with the worst view in the world), and other locations visible to The People.
As private funding was often supported by the capitalist elite and public art funding was subject to censorship of views, the only avenue for graffiti artists’ messaging, words, honesty, bravery and rebellion often against that elite was their spray painted, cheap art on free, public “canvases”. As we see in Jillian Goss-Holmes’ article on the increasing value of actual canvases painted by Graffiti artists and in publicly supported “murals” Graffiti has become high priced art with a capital A.
Similarly, As Lanita Brooks Colbert writes, the history of protest art once included publicly funded freedom of speech. In a former age, the robber barons in this country, and fantastically wealthy people in other nations felt it incumbent upon themselves, and indeed their responsibility to support others poorer than they by funding libraries, schools, public feeding and housing programs, and importantly for readers of Art Lantern, artists of every genre. Music, drama, visual art, publicly funded architecture, performance and literature thrived due to public support.
The arts took a deep turn toward nonrepresentational work, and non-political work as content by those producing was not understood nor challenged by the vast American audience preferring Norman Rockwell’s odes to white, Christian family holiday gatherings, and views of the beauty of isolated mountains and streams, the American wilderness, majesty of purple mountains and fruited plains. But as non-representational work flourished, words took on new positions in visual art. Projected words and images enabled buildings to serve as backdrops for those projections. Krzysztof Wodiczko juxtaposed a projection of a gun and a lit candle on the face of the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. the night before the mass killing at a Florida high school. Concerned with the state of human rights, he collaborated with refugees to project images and voices of refugees. Barbara Kruger projected the words, “Whose Values” in Chicago, and projected, in her “Untitled”, Your Body is a Battleground, later asking “Whose Hopes, Whose Fears?”. Michael Bell, (Bell Visuals) projected the words of George Floyd, “I Cannot Breathe”, and “150,000 Too Many” on the Covid Memorial. Technology was added to the spray paint used in years past, and still used, but with more precision today by grown up Graffiti “mural” artists. The bravery and commitment still exist. Like Barbara Kruger, in short phrases, Jorge Benitez, in a longer, compelling argument asks who the words, in our nation’s contract are for and underlines the role visual arts must play in making that argument public. Turning back to media aimed at contemporary (read that younger) audiences, Rina Oh, an Epstein survivor, extends the definition of Graffiti to the graphic novel, as her alter ego sets off a blaze of glory, reaping revenge on her abuser.
In this issue, we read of solutions offered by artists. There is positivity, an insistence that we treasure the beauty of our earth in the Sunflowers created from natural materials by Pag Black. Hidden prayers shielded by gold in Ekaterina Sky’s work insist we contemplate how we treat our common earth. Richard Humann writes of artists’ insistence on producing work no matter how much of worldly goods and pleasures is given up.
Commenting, our writer shows how Tom Stoppard rejects Nietzsche’s eternal return in perhaps the 20th century’s best play.
Recently, we saw with the exodus of the cast and crew of “Hamilton”, from the Kennedy Center, resignations of those nominated for Kennedy Center Honors, the move from the Kennedy Center of the Washington Opera, the defunding of institutions and artists supported by the NEA and NEH and their leadership turned over to inexperienced arbiters of the arts sympathetic to the administration’s preferences, racist and anti-LGBTQ+ policies. This situation has led to the economic suffering of practitioners of the humanities, artists, writers, performers. Our country loses masters of the arts to other nations, who know the importance of allowing artists free rein to criticize, and put forward their views, guaranteeing freedom of speech.
But Graffiti kids, older artists, projection artists are still effectively exhibiting their words, somehow finding financing or creating on the cheap, with buildings, books and the sky as their canvas, as artists always have, widening the population that sees their message. In the best and founding tradition of Graffiti art, we all have to notice, and we do. Bless the Graffiti artists, they are alright!
