Generally, a "memorial" is synonymous to a statue or bust of someone who impacted the lives of others, or perhaps an abstract or industrialized structure commemorating anyone who has lost their life in a way perceived to be noble or in vain. We see these structures all around us, the statue of John Copley and the Martin Luther King Jr. birds. The recognizable V of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the distinctive waterfall pits in New York, the regal statue of our 16th president and the sky scraping tower for our 1st all use simple architectural structures to commemorate the "great" leaders and heroes of our country.

Artists such as Maya Lin exemplify the simplicity of such a structurally simple memorial. It has been described as a "scar" but it is incredibly simple, showing memorial without words. But what about using words or simple small objects to make a statement instead? This is where great figures in art such as Ai Weiwei come into place.

The sunflower seeds, backpack wall, and "Remembrance" audio recordings all show different ways to commemorate people, the common people. The sunflower seeds commemorate the importance of the individual in society no matter what social class, the backpacks point fingers at how the government ignores its lost children who had a potentially bright future, and the recording remembers those lost in tragedy. Each of these pieces ignores the traditional look of a memorial, being a statue or structure of permanence. Ai Weiwei's work uses temporary forms of media, the crushable seeds, perishable backpacks, and online readings to truly get his memorials to hit hard and fast, instead of being merely contemplative. Someone else, who, like Ai Weiwei is less of a fan of statue and more of a fan of direct words or impact is Lawrence Weiner. 

All of Weiner's art, some of them seemingly meaningless, are different portrayals of words or phrases. The top picture is at the Greenway in Boston, his attempt to convey how "translation" of language and art into different styles of media help everyone connect with them. Something such as his simple phrases let everyone connect with his art and interpret it for his/herself. I definitely like the idea, and I picked these few for the specific reason that these are the ones I truly connected to. At first, I thought that the others were useless, meaningless phrases put up for no reason. However, I wonder if they connect to someone else the way these few connect to me. 

Another artist that uses words as a primary focus is Jenny Holzer, as well as Barbara Kruger.

Both of these artists use their words as the art, to convey a message or simply make a statement. While I wouldn't quite say that these pieces really act as a "memorial", they tell a story and make you think. I feel that this is truly at the core of art, that more flowery and "artistic" art is really just a statement at its core. Whether it is a statement as simple as "I think this scene is beautiful" or as complex as "we need to rethink society and its ideals", most art pieces have a skeleton phrase that gives the piece meaning. What Weiner, Kruger, and Holzer are doing is stripping the fluff and just painting or creating art of what they simply want to say, what point they want to make. In such a textual world, I think we as a society are more willing to accept such stripped bare pieces of art and appreciate their simplicity and directness.

Art such as that of Willie Cole,

Maya Lin,

and Ai Weiwei

all create pieces related to recycling. Cole's bottles send a message about recycling and how we use such an absurd amount of bottles and destroy the environment. Lin just uses old toys and milk cartons and repurposes them to be art, so as not to be wasteful and show the world what you can do with what you already have. Weiwei uses old relics and "destroys" them to challenge the perception of art and artifacts and their importance. Each of these artists is finding a new way to get their message across very simply, and at the core of all of these projects is a message that Weiner would stencil onto a wall or Holzer would project onto a hillside or Kruger would type in red and white and slap onto a monochromatic picture. As we come full circle, one realizes that at the core, whether art is a memorial of something, like Lin's commemoration of the Vietnam war and Weiwei's seeds, or a phrase, such as Weiner's murals and Holzer's projections, or even a recycled simplistic piece, such as Cole's bottles or Weiwei's vases, all art has the same idea. They are all simply trying to make a statement to the world, whether in obvious language or cryptic design.

As a bonus and relevant to the last post, I saw this on my way to class today and went back later to take a picture:

I thought this was very interesting that this is still something advertised by those in charge in such a liberal-centric town.

Having grown up in a nearly rural suburbs, the only experience I ever had with graffiti was the observatory in the orchard, where young couples went to proclaim their eternal devotion by etching their initials into the rotting wood (and where me and my friends went to make our mark on the small, unimportant town).

I have always found graffiti to be beautiful, an adornment on an otherwise industrialized piece of a city, and yet I feel strangely indifferent to it. I am neither as passionate as the graffiti writers themselves, trying desperately to get their names out and make their mark, or as enraged as the uptight critics of said art, labeling it as destructive and an embarrassment to society. While watching "Style Wars", I felt almost that this passion was awkward and misplaced. Those who felt the need to leave something behind on government property were passionate about their work, and despite the beauty and precision with which they created dazzling names, that was it, names. These people weren't painting messages about social issues or trying to get a truly noble message across; they were trying to get their name out there. And the government officials were out of their minds trying to convince the viewers of how horrific graffiti is and how it ruins the lives of everyday people, yet again, all they were enraged about was simply artistic renderings of names and words. Graffiti is nothing more than a way for the public to leave their mark on society.

While these are all from New York circa the "Style Wars" era, there's plenty of graffiti all over the world. 

France:

Portugal:

South Africa:

Thailand:

There is graffiti everywhere, and most of it is a name, most of which can barely be read due to their unique and nearly illegible font. (All images from here)

That being said, the concept is truly fascinating. At the amusement park I grew up near, there was one ride they kept constantly refurbishing as it got covered in etchings and scribbles of peoples names and initials and dates. As a kid, I always loved to look at this wall and see all these people's names and know they came and did the same rides and things that I was doing. 

On a large scale, this almost relates to my major in anthropology. If cavemen and ancient populations hadn't left so many drawings and names on items and walls, we would be much more clueless to our past as a species, and all of the intrigue towards historical society would be left unfulfilled. I think it is human nature to want to leave a mark on the planet to be remembered by, and while we shouldn't necessarily celebrate most graffiti because it does, in a way, defile property that doesn't belong to the artist, at the same time, we shouldn't see it as entirely destructive, and offer outlets and places where graffiti is allowed to be expressed.

After doing all this research on names and traditional graffiti, learning more about Banksy was an interesting change. Banksy's graffiti seems a lot less basic-human-instinctual and more political and social commentary, which I definitely appreciate. It follows the human desire to leave his or her mark, but in a more selfless way.

Banksy clearly sees street art as a way to send a message and values its importance historically, the way I previously mentioned. I found the most fitting piece of Banksy art to be this, of a street cleaner cleaning off historical cave wall drawings.

In the movie, a man attempts to sell a piece of Banksy art that he pilfered from whatever wall or building it was on. He goes through tons of effort and hundreds, potentially thousands of dollars, to restore and authenticate a tattered, raggedy piece of street art. The kicker is that he ends up selling it for thousands of dollars, when it costed him nothing to obtain and a fraction of the money he made to refurbish it. What he briefly entertains us with is the question of morality of his whole mission. After all, he did steal the art off of a wall. Was that ethically correct, since it was just put out for the public's enjoyment, and so he should be allowed to take it for his extra enjoyment? Or should it be left alone and be unsellable since it was put on the street to inspire those on the street, not only those who can afford it? Chris Thompson, the man behind the documentary, has the mentality that "If someone is putting art in front of you on the street and it's worth thousands of dollars, who says I can't take it?" And I think he isn't necessarily wrong; he can indeed take it as he showed us. The issue is somewhat over his misinterpretation of Banksy's message. I don't think Banksy wanted people to profit from his work in a monetary sense, but rather in an enlightening sense. That being said, if I saw a piece of street art I knew was worth thousands and I knew how to remove it and make it sellable, I would most certainly try to sell it. It's only human to want and need money, and I cannot quite judge his actions because I would probably do the same. If graffiti were normalized, I think people would feel less inclined to pilfer it and more inclined to appreciate it. Right now, people are trying to find the boundary between street art and sellable art, and until these lines are drawn, no one will know truly the legality of this uncharted territory.

As for the EyeWriter device, I think it is so incredibly ingenious. The fact that it is at all associated with graffiti is nearly irrelevant. It allows anyone at all with almost no mobility create art with their eyes, and that in and of itself is fascinating. I am truly interested to see how the world improves in similar ways, going forward. At what point does art, or even intelligence, become suddenly accessible to the entire world population? When does a disability become unable to disable a person due to the sheer expanse of science? Regardless, graffiti does have an impact on the world and society, and it is certainly an important aspect of everyday life and culture.

This week's assignment was to go to 4 different parts of town to find artwork from the Public Art Boston interactive map. When we discussed the map in class, I was intrigued by the paint boxes and was determined to find one, and lo and behold, there was one just sitting there on my walk to work, just itching to be photographed. It is of a watermelon, put simply, with a wedge taken out of the side.

 I was a little underwhelmed at the simplicity of the piece and disappointed at its seemingly meaningless existence at first. However, the more I walked by this unnaturally box-shaped watermelon, the more I appreciated its presence. Even though it seemed to symbolize nothing, it gave people something to look at and wonder about on otherwise mundane walks across campus. By meaning virtually nothing, is it suddenly more deep and curious art, making the observer think harder about meaning and come up with his or her own ideas about its background? In any case, it definitely added color to a boring corner of the street, and the fact that these boxes are so open to the common people adds character to the city and its otherwise ordinary civilian population. 

On Sunday, I struggled with how to tackle the other three art pieces, since I had to leave my comfortable burrow that is the expanse of campus. When scouring the map, I found a piece depicting a tree located in Chinatown, and with a hankering for authentic Chinese food and an equally hungry suite mate, I took the T down to Chinatown, in search of an artistic tree and a highly rated Vietnamese restaurant. 

When me and Phoebe were done eating a hearty meal (at a different restaurant because the Vietnamese one seemed to be non-existent) and spent entirely too much money at the market, we almost accidentally bumped into the tree plaque, which looked entirely different than the one in the picture on the map.

Confused, we searched the surrounding area for an entirely similar plaque, only in color and on a wall, and spotted it on a building only a few feet away, which seemed odd.

However, upon further research, the story is interesting. The one in the window is very old, a symbol of the town's real liberty tree, but the plaque is newer. Apparently, a man named Ronald Kessler had an idea in the sixties to build an entire park-like area dedicated to this important American symbol, which ended up not happening and the location was simply commemorated with another plaque. This site claims the park idea might be revived as soon as this fall or next spring, and I'd be curious to see how that goes. Otherwise, I feel the piece is interesting, albeit awkwardly located. A tribute to America located in Chinatown seems somewhat misplaced. Regardless, any historical art has value in both contexts, and gives a glimpse into the artistic talents and inspirations of the past. While leaving Chinatown, I happened to pass this rather interesting work of art in a window.

It is simply what appears to be the face of a heavily adorned woman in a stone bust. I snapped a picture of it and its caption, just because I felt it needed to be shared somewhere. What is interesting is about whether or not the theater which either was there or still is there might have been torn down in favor of the liberty tree... Something to think about. 

A few days later, on a nice, breezy autumn day, I took a stroll over to the MFA to see the sculptures outside the building. I found them rather odd, seeing as they were just two giant infant heads, a deer, and a Native American shooting a bow. 

The Native American and deer at least made sense together, but I'm not sure about the enormous baby heads. However, they did catch my eye. The artist meant them as a means to represent sleeping versus being awake, the "known and unknown". For sure, they are a statement piece that I think give the area character. The other two sculptures were fine, adding art to the fitting location of an art museum, and the culture of America's lost past, of the "Indian Hunter" and "Pronghorn Antelope". This also provokes some thought though, because the artist could either have been depicting the Native American in a cruel, murderous view, or he could have been simply paying homage to the country's lost past.

I continued my journey with the destination of Copley Square in mind, remembering I had seen there was art there. I walked along the beautiful scenery and took all too many pictures of buildings and landscape and relied too heavily on my GPS, until I finally reached Copley Square, and with only 1% battery left snapped a quick photo of the first statue I saw and ran to the T station in the hopes of not letting my phone die. The picture I took is actually of John Copley, presumably the area's namesake. 

It was elegant, and somewhat fit with the historical theme of this post's artworks (minus the watermelon). Knowing nothing about him, I looked the statue up, and he was an artist himself, a portrait painter. I thought it would be fun to look up the yelp review of the statue, and while there was only two, the comparison of them really revealed the importance of art in a city. The first woman called it a "perfect picture opportunity" and detailed it as something to see on your way through. The other reviewer was incredibly thorough, raving about the wonders of the statue and the interesting aspects of Copley's life. Even these two reviews give a glimpse at how art affects everyone in different positive ways. I might have found too many statues and historical pieces this week, but I felt it was much more enlightening to really get out of my comfort zone and learn more about the city.

*** Here are some bonus pictures from the trip***