Authentic Geneologist

I took this photo on a subway platform in New York. I think it's a work of art and it has some interesting characteristics that deserve commentary. I'll assert that this work is distinct from ordinary tagging-style graffiti, the work found in commercial galleries, and also from academic work.

When I discovered it in the middle of a routine work day it looked fresh. By the time I fetched my camera and returned to photograph it a piece had already fallen off. I picked up the piece and re-attached it according to my memory and judgment. Therefore I reconstructed the work which counts as once removed from the original, and now you are looking at a photograph, which counts as twice removed. This gives it a very transient ad hoc quality that means it was best experienced in person at the brief moment it was complete. It has since surely disintegrated. The art is gone and now this post has become an online art museum preserving the past for future generations.

The work was apparently created by cutting out parts of advertising posters and re-attaching the bits to another poster. It's a collage. What makes this collage interesting is the efficient means and cumulative effect. First, all of the components were taken from advertising posters on the same train platform. Second, the final work subverts the intended message of the target poster. Whatever logic these posters have is disrupted and mocked by the reconfiguration of collage. It's done artfully and with humor. This rises above mere vandalism, which is destruction without reconstruction.

The work violates the laws of private property, which strikes at a fundamental structure of our society. The lawbreaking is also a distinct characteristic of this work that sets it apart from the commercial gallery and academe. It shares this characteristic with graffiti, which arguably is not graffiti if it is legally placed.

The July 3-10 2006 New York magazine has a nice article called "Graffiti in its own words" about the history of New York graffiti (also known as tagging) starting from the late 1960s. The article defines "tagging" as writing your name or pseudonym in public places which is what people usually mean by graffiti. Why write your name in prominent public places all over town? The tagger MICO provides an answer: "But we all had one thing in common: We wanted to be famous." (page 50) So tagging is self promotion by illegal means, among other things. The New York article also mentions that the public identity of tags allowed for inter-group dialogue and competition. The work of taggers becomes recognized by other taggers and informed observers. The work I've photographed is anonymous. Only forensic evidence, such as fingerprints or DNA could positively identify the maker. Absent such evidence, anyone could assert to have done it.

If the maker is anonymous, then why run the risk of being caught, arrested, tried and punished for vandalism (or whatever term the law uses)? All taggers run this risk but the reward of fame in the eyes of the intended audience makes the risk work taking. The tagger seeks visibility in a public space that is highly controlled and these controls may preclude the tagger from successful participation via legal means, so deviant illegal means are adopted. The display of sufficient wherewithal to circumvent the controls is also important to the tagger's fame. The maker of this work has found a way to operate in public space and reach an audience, but because the anonymous status of the work self promotion and fame is impossible. Perhaps the maker's identity is a shared secret among close friends but without a public identity it cannot gain the artist greater fame or notoriety in a larger audience. Maybe the creator of this work had to abandon it before signing it because of the presence of police. I can't say for sure that this is the case, but I really believe that if the maker wanted to tag it (i.e., sign it with his or her name or pseudonym), then it would have been signed. The wherewithal to make the work as I found it is more than enough to take the next step and sign it. It might be a symptom of the abilities of the authorities to make arrests based on the evidence of tags, but I doubt it. The absence of a tag is crucial.

To summarize, this work has three characteristics of note:

1. Violation of the norms of property ownership and authority.
2. Scrambling the logic of the intended message and substitution with a mocking, nonsensical, irrational message.
3. The artist's identity is unknown.

If any of these three characteristics are absent, then this kind of work will fall into a category of tagging (graffiti), commercial gallery work, or academic work. The distinction between commercial gallery and academic has everything to do with who is controlling the venue and to what ends.

Another way to state point 1 is that the work is outlaw. There is a that argues that to be outside the law is to be free, answerable to no oppressor. If the work is executed via legal means then the maker must submit to the power structure of the law and its history and in so doing fails as an effective critique. There is also the contentious argument about the nature of private property and commerce, which may have been a motive. I don't endorse any of these reasons, the point is to try and look at this in more than one way in an effort to understand.

Point 2 is closely related to point 1 in that the power of the message is negated and replaced with one of the maker's own creation. It doesn't engage in dialogue, it mocks it. Could this be seen as a way of taking control? Perhaps the the only weak point is the structure of grammar that remains, recognizable and antecedent. I wonder if the artist could go further on this point.

I think it's fair to say that the established art world of galleries and museums has absorbed point two without much difficulty, but cannot participate in point 1 without some self destructive consequences because of the fundamental importance of private property in our society.

Point 3 is in my opinion the most interesting and I'll attempt to grapple with it. The Metropolitan Museum is loaded with astonishing works of art that have anonymous makers and this issue does not prevent us from enjoying the art. Ancient artifacts are however distinctly different from contemporary art because the former is remote from its original cultural context and the latter is not. Is it necessary to know who made a contemporary piece? I have a fuzzy memory of my Western Art History survey course beginning to name artists regularly beginning about the chapter on the Renaissance. It seems that in modern times we have come to expect to know the name of the artist, and it seems to be the case that today the biography of the artist is frequently looked to for insights into the work. Given our contemporary expectations or curiosity about the biography of the artist it does seem odd indeed that this work is anonymous.

A major retrospective is an honor for an artist with a long career. What defines a retrospective is that it is a collection of artworks made over a period of time in a studio controlled by a particular artist. There is some kind of continuity to the project insomuch as an individual is credited with responsibility for its production. At the opening reception you can shake the hand of the artist so honored. This work on the train platform blocks at the outset any idea of the possibility of there being a retrospective of this work and others like it by one individual. Not only could anyone claim to have made it, but just as easily anyone could disavow it.

If I have understood this work correctly, then this entire essay has dealt with it on terms completely antithetical to it, indeed in terms that are easily subverted by this piece. On its own this piece eludes capture, something that can't be done in academe where participants are held accountable in ways large and small.

Thinking in terms of subversion, I can imagine this essay being printed out and cut so each word is on its own separate piece of paper and thrown back in my face like confetti. Watching the paper snowfall I wonder about something. If norms most of us take for granted are flaunted with such aplomb and triumph then why stop with only one piece? Did one come before? Will there be another? If in fact there is a follow up piece (and who could not resist), just as radical and completely different, and disavowed as well, to all appearances there will be spectacular rupture. Yet on the side of production there will be a continuity hidden from the audience. Working first on one piece then another is the same thing that the artist who gets the retrospective does, an above ground character who gets honored in part for the continuity and gets held accountable in ways large and small. On this last point I must speculate, because the continuity of working from one piece to another is hidden from view. That is the tactic that takes this kind of work further than its Dada origins.