Performance & Intervention II

The Urban Event: Spectacle Resistance and Hegemony by Karen Jones starts with a comparison of the similarities between a potlatch and a riot.  The similarities are based on shared community interests.  A potlatch is a Native American practice where one tribal chief offers gifts in response to the offering of a gift from another tribal chief.   The process is considered a communal social exchange however it can escalate to the extent of property destruction.  On the other hand, a riot is also based on a common response to an action, policy or social event.  Similar to a potlatch, a riot can also escalate to property destruction and loss of lives.  The two sides of a riot are the common people and the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA).  The RSA consists of the government, army, police and any other federal or state appointed authority. 

Graffiti is a type of riot in an art form.  In the 70s and early 80s, the urban youth literally took to the streets, subways, and other public spaces to express their ideas on changes in their community.  They considered these areas as public space therefore open to their expressions.  The RSA had other ideas and tried to stop graffiti from spreading.  However as we know today, graffiti is still alive and well in our communities  Several of the graffiti artist became known through their tags such as Crash, Daze, Futura 2000, and Lady Pink.  Graffiti techniques and vocabulary lead to artists such as Jean-Michael Basquiat and Al Diaz. 

Daze, 1977

Futura

Banksy

Andy Warhol captured an image of the Birmingham Race Riot in 1964.  The image appeared in Life magazine.  The mass production of the mechanically produced image shows the clash between police, their attack dogs and the non-aggressive demonstrators.  Warhol accomplished several things with Birmingham Race Riot.  First the image reached the fine art culture and then through publishing it reached the common people.  And last it got the World to see firsthand the destruction and barbarity produced by the RSA. 

When you first imagine a riot, you see visions of disorder, screaming people with police in riot gear confronting them.  This is what the media and government would like us to think of when we hear riot.  However, Karen Jones describes a riot as an “uprising, event, rebellion, or revolutionary movement.”  I think this definition gives a riot meaning and honor.  It is standing up for your beliefs not standing against other’s beliefs.  A riot begins with a peaceful belief in a movement.  Very rarely is a riot the first stage of a demonstration.  It is only when the two conflicting sides lash out at each other that a riot ensues.  I have to wonder what is in for the government (police) to start an aggressive movement towards peaceful demonstrators.  Are they trying to silence the demonstrations?  Are they are trying to scare them?  Or are they simply trying to make the demonstrators appear to be the aggressors therefore have the spectators side with the police? 

One example of a police ensued riot is The Tompkins Square Riot on August 6, 1988 which began with about 100 people who oppose the 1a.m. curfew order to clear the homeless from public places.  The peaceful organized group was met with police aggression.  The police caused panic throughout the community. 

Several art installations address the issues of homelessness due to urban development.  Wodiczko’s New York City Tableaux: Tompkins Square depicts military equipment superimposed over photos of the homeless.  Cold Shoulders by David Hammons shows three ice blocks wrapped in overcoats.  The melting ice block refers to the freezing of the homeless in streets and parks. 

Two-Way Street by Lydia Yee discusses two approaches to street-based photography.  The first example is time exposure used by Eugene Atget.  The second is “a la savette” or on the run used by Henri Cartier-Bresson.  Yee states that these two types of photography, "the archive and the event remained distinct until the 1960s". Two exhibits at Museum of Modern Art in New York are New Documents (1967) and Information (1970). New Documents focused on three photographers, Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander and Garry S Winogrand.  They were a new generation of photographers who wanted to be part of life not reform it.  Information included works from Vito Acconci, John Baldessari, Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, Bruce Nauman, Adrian Piper, Edward Ruscha and Robert Smithson. 

Yee writes about David Wojnarwicz who photographs various locations in New York City while wearing a mask of French poet, Arthur Rimbaud.  Wojnarwicz relates to Rimbaud’s rebellious nature.  Wojnarwicz states “I’ve always treated the camera as a journalistic devise but at the same time, for years and years I’ve taken pictures of things because they were psychologically loaded…photographs were like words in a sentence…what I try to do is to construct paragraphs out of the multiple images.” 

Finally Yee writes about Nikki S. Lee’s images.  Lee put herself in various scenes and photographed herself in them.  The street is important in her photographs.  These photographs are self-portraits as well documenting the culture surrounding Lee. 

As mentioned in last week’s blog, “our physical, mental and artistic world is always changing.”  The same came be said about the streets.  It provides an ever-changing canvas for art.