THE TINY BIRD on top of a four metre bronze pole guarding Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral Oratory is Tracy Emin’s ‘Roman
standard’. It was commissioned by the BBC, so the inevitable question on the BBC website was, “What do you think of public art? Does it enrich the cultural life of the city or is it a waste of money?”
Despite the usual chorus of philistines and whingers, it is a thrilling time for ‘official’ public art – 2005 was a bumper year. In London, who could not be moved by Mark Quinn’s ‘Alison Lapper Pregnant’ on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth? On the South Bank, and then at the Eden Centre in Cornwall, the RSA’s seven-metre ‘WEEE Man’ starkly illustrated the three tonnes of electronic waste the average citizen is likely to consume in a lifetime. In Manchester, Thomas Heatherwick’s ‘B of the Bang’ – the tallest sculpture in the UK and a tribute to the Commonwealth Games – was launched with a spectacular firework display. In Newcastle and Gateshead, Spencer Tunick’s largest installation to date engaged 1,700 nude people on the streets and bridges. At Crosby Beach, Antony Gormley’s ‘Another Place’ – 100 life-size bronze figures – pleased the art world and has been adopted by local people. It has been a huge success in transforming a mediocre place into a destination and a setting for extraordinary events. In August, 40 of the figures were dressed in white T-shirts and purple capes by Fathers for Justice protesting about the Child Support Agency. Last Christmas, thousands experienced a nativity play in Another Place with a camel, a donkey, a flock of sheep and, of course, angels. In Blackpool, hyper-kitsch and art crossed over. For the first time in 126 years the illuminations stretched beyond the promenade and embraced formal, commissioned ‘public art’, including the world’s biggest glitter ball. It’s obvious that public investment in public art carries risks and automatically triggers knee-jerk whingeing. But what a return from the successes! Far better value for money than expensive and wasteful ‘economic development’ littering the landscape with vacant crinkly sheds.
Meanwhile, in the world of ‘unofficial’ public art, there were some triumphs as well. Heysham, Lancashire, in the shadow of the nuclear power station, won Britain in Bloom 2005 – wonderful! But the nadir was the ill-advised appearance by Tony Blair cleaning graffiti from a wall and the authoritarian nonsense around the otherwise welcome Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act. One person’s graffiti, councillor, is another’s street art. Street art has a very long history. It can be traced back to the cave paintings at Lascaux. More recent influences are 1970s Los Angeles hip hop and global cartoon characters. The elements of street art are tags (the signatures of the artist or the crew), characters and pieces (derived from masterpieces) – these are full-colour works, often focused around a name or word written in funky, stylised fonts. Typical media are paint and markers, stencils, stickers and digital/the web. Street artists have become world famous, the subject of monographs and exhibitions.
The real identity of Banksy – perhaps the most famous exponent of stencilling – is unknown. His ‘rogue artworks’ have ranged from Stone Age shopping trolleys in the British Museum, to the iconic anarchist rat climbing over anti- climb paint, to the image of a child digging a hole through the Palestine side of the West Bank wall. The French 123klan claim that, “You can’t stop it – graffiti is bigger than politics and even bigger than the United Nations”. Maybe that’s a slight overstatement. But the boundaries between the official and the unofficial are becoming blurred. In Newcastle, ‘Eye of the Fly’ is an innovative, lottery-supported project that uses disused industrial units as blank spaces in which young people experiment in spraying. In London, the undercroft of the Hayward Gallery has become unmolested street art/ skateboarding territory.
Street art is crossing over into marketing of cool stuff. With the exception of sterile shopping malls, it can be found everywhere. Attempts to obliterate the possibility of street art by designing out opportunities usually fail. The squelchers – killjoys with their eyes wide shut – will always meet resistance. The best buildings are long life, loose fit, low energy. The best public spaces are also loose fit. Creative people and places need each other. Banksy sums it up beautifully: “Imagine a city where graffiti wasn’t illegal, where everybody could draw wherever they liked, where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases. Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that feels like a living, breathing thing which belongs to everybody, not just the estate agents and barons of big business... Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall – it’s wet.”
