Politics,
Madness and Spray-Paint
In Zurich, Switzerland
on many canvases and walls, a creepy Swiss man; that resembles the
late horror film actor Peter Lorre, is airbrushing a world of crazy
textures and creatures that even ones most frightening nightmares
wouldn't conjure with thinly veiled messages about life's futile
fears, simply using all the shades of gray. Meanwhile in the busiest
cities and politically charged environments, a masked man from the UK
is spray-painting a stencil-drawn image that is food-for-thought in
regards to why we may hate each other or what it means when one is
faced with the truth in plain black and white. Every once in a while
we are reminded that art isn't limited to the bright and colorful
just as much as it isn't held in the boundaries of being on merely
canvas, and the works of these two artists are proof. These two
craftsmen of the imagination are Hans Rudolph Giger (or H.R. Giger
for short) and the United Kingdom’s masked madman, Banksy.
In my younger days I
aspired to be an artist but had many inspirations that were more in
the world of cartoons and comic books. Many at the time didn't
consider those mediums to be very serious art, but when I was a teen,
the great Renaissance artists didn't stir my interests. However, the
simplicity of spandex-clad superheroes was a lot easier for me absorb
visually than cherubs, naked statues, or falsely depicted images of
Christ. In those adolescent years the works of Van Gogh and Leonardo
didn't really impress me; it all seemed like they were just crafting
a world that already existed. I already knew what “Postcard Paris”
looked like and seeing it through the mind of Van Gogh's absinthe
haze in Starry Nights just looked like a blue, smeary mess.
Seeing art and being captivated by it didn’t happen to me until I
saw pictures from the film Alien (1979, 20th
Century Fox) in a Barnes and Noble comic book section in the
mid-nineties.
 |
| Banksy |
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| HR Giger |
The creature of the
Alien in Ridley Scott's film was designed by H.R. Giger, who was
notable at the time for his work displayed in his 1977 compendium
Necronomicon. While the “Mom” Barnes and “Pop” Noble I found
this book in wasn't well stocked enough to cater to a comic book fan,
this coffee table book caught my eye instantly. Giger's imagery is
painted with airbrushing and usually isn't very colorful; more often
employing just one color and many shades of gray and black. His
subjects usually are people that look as if they've been bound into
landscapes of wild textures or attached to machines and metal. These
portraits are often painted to be realistic and to the more sensitive
eye, disturbing. His most notable work is an ink drawn early work
known as Birth Machine: A work that shows a cross-section of a
handgun, showing all the springs and inter-working gears that operate
the weapon, yet instead of bullets- the guns clip in the handle shows
three bald, old men that resemble children; one child in the chamber
ready to be fired from the barrel. One would gaze at this work and
ask themselves: Is it political or just a shockingly cynical view of
how life feels like you’ve been shot from a cannon and forced to
fall into line?
As a youngster with an
interest in art this was an eye opening game-changer. I found an
artist that appealed to my senses and as a 1990’s Goth, this was an
artist that made paintings that stirred my imagination. Whenever
sketching I would try to emulate, this shady world of anatomical
landscapes, emaciated figures that seemed to tell their own stories
and this whole time I kept in mind just why Giger painted this way:
“I became aware that
art is a vital activity that keeps me from falling into madness”
(Giger, 1997, p.9).
He paints more for
himself it seems than for any audience that might very well turn
their heads in disgust; perhaps he enjoys the disturbed reactions of
ordinary people more than pandering of art critics. From those days
on, I was hooked to this style and showing this work to others my age
just to see their eyes open as wide as silver dollars was a joy.
The other end of my
artistic tastes points more towards the satirical: Banksy has become
my new leaf. His work isn't always on display in museums and if it
is, it’s purely for the sake of irony. Banksy is a street graffiti
artist and his work has been illegally tagged on walls ranging from
the broadsides of warehouses in the UK, alleys in Europe and most
notably, the Israeli/Palestine West Bank border wall. Few people have
seen this man's face, as he works mostly at night and wears a mask
that resembles a Japanese anime monkey. Since his work gets painted
on property and is illegal his work has an anonymity that gives each
piece an edge; he has no political party that supports him or his
work. Banksy embraces and defends his anonymity, once quoting:
“'In the future,
everybody will be anonymous for 15 minutes.'' (Trebay, 2011, p.1)
Banksy could either
show a brief glimpse on religion, politics, or life on the whole.
Some of these images can either portray the ridiculousness or danger
of those subjects. Most of his works are spray paints that have been
stenciled onto walls and Banksy has to be able to quickly put an
image onto a wall, move into the cover of night before the police
show up. And in the interest of not repeating himself Banksy has also
made larger, sculptural works that show up on the streets of London;
one day a red telephone box is missing from London’s SoHo square
and a week later it will return to its original location…bent in
half (Kent 2006, p.10). Other examples of his pieces spray-painted
onto a wall could also be a bandana-masked man posed as if he is
about to throw a flaming molotov cocktail bomb but the lit bottle is
replaced with a bouquet of flowers. Is he telling us to make peace
and not war? Or are we supposed to guffaw at such an idea of throwing
flowers towards our aggressors? He tags, you decide and his work
allows you to pursue your own conclusion. Regardless of how vague
some of the art may be, people’s reactions to Banksy are an array
of emotions, varying from the patronizing of people who see the work
but really don’t understand it, to genuine perplexing that asks
“What the hell does he mean?” My reaction is one where my
imagination draws a conclusion: The violence in this image of the
Molotov cocktail/FTD-logo-like flower bomber begs for me to ask that
for all our aggression towards hate, are we just as zealous with the
equally as important emotion, love?
So now one could ask:
what do these eccentric figures, separated by countries and cultures,
have in common? Giger is leaning on the illusions of an opium
addiction, while Banksy is strategically changing the hearts and
minds of people who fight over trivial things. One could see the
political undertones of Giger in the Birthmachine work, but
this doesn’t really hit the eye as much as Banksy’s ideological
symbols outlined in his pieces. However, Banksy isn’t fond of high
details or texture thanks lack of legality of his craft meaning he
can’t stay at the wall painting very long. But the commonality of
these two is in the tools of their trade: Air propelled paint.
Airbrushing is just the same as spray painting, and vice versa. One
comfortably uses the medium in the privacy in his home to disturb the
mind while the other uses his cans of Krylon to get the gears in the
mind turning. All hail, air propelled paint!
My voluntary exposure to
these artists has made me look at the world through
not-even-close-to-rose colored glasses. While I haven’t lifted a
paint brush since high school, I still take a lot of inspiration from
these men; they're works have given me the drive to write with as
much creativity as they have painted. As a result, I now can
appreciate the Van Gogh paintings and the sculptures of Michelangelo.
Perhaps those crazier pieces by Giger and Banksy are gateways to
higher art because I once was like many young people and just didn’t
quite understand the great Renaissance paintings of old and needed to
see the dark or funny side of fine art first; a habit compared to
when one begins a wine tasting hobby by starting with cheaper, and
easier to enjoy, boxed vino. Perhaps Giger and Banksy are not just
artists but rather flavors to the eye to be enjoyed or at the very
least, sampled.
References
Giger, H. R. (1997).
Retrospective.
(3rd ed.). (p. 9). Beverly Hills, CA, USA:
Morpheus International.
Kent, P. (2006, April 8). Calling
all conceptual artists. New
York Times, p. 1.
Retrieved From:
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/resultsadvanced?sid=ddae20de-e90c-486f-94668e8a31d20fdf%40sessionmgr11&vid=2&hid=10&bquery=Calling+AND+all+AND+conceptual+AND+artists&bdata=JmRiPWFwaCZ0eXBlPTEmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl
Trebay, G. (2011, January 20).
Designers Anonymous. New
York Times. p. 1
Retrieved From:
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