Yes Mom,
Graffiti is violent!
But this ain’t Graffiti.
Histories most compelling arts have always been violent, they never asked for consent or consensual acceptance: aesthetic propositions that directly touch our emotional sensibilities and concerns, have continually come from communities rejected by the traditional art world.
Parallel to the Art.Fair21 in Cologne, Germany, Second Hand Smoke unites the fog and traces of some of the most compelling street arts of the last decade, following them into a space where they are no longer subject to labels like ‘skate’ or ‘street’ but appear simply as brave, competent and socially (emotionally) relevant artistic offerings.
There is no authority, neither science, nor philosophy (not even common sense) that lingers as an accurate or ethical guide. Anything and everything touched by taste or instrumental reason appears tainted by bias or veiled interest, and headline news has landed in a family of fiction. In an age of uncertainty, are only weapons are questions, courage and playful critical thought.
For more than 30 years now, rotating generations of artists have embraced these tools and unleashed creative energy into their environments presenting a voice for the silent majority on the architecture of our decaying metropolises.
Viewed as dangerous and covered in cliché labels of juvenile angst, this unnamed movement is no longer in its teens and while rejected by authorities, this circle reiterates evidence that thought cannot be stopped.
Police sirens are ringing and meanwhile activist artists attached to this coming community are influencing all spheres of the cultural sector, from character design to calligraphy, from fashion to propaganda or marketing strategies, from painting to politics to the undermining of accepted social perversions.
This is movement. It is rebellion. It is the language of images and the cry for an authentic aesthetic discussion, enabled as opposed to unarmed, by an opposition of dogmatic hierarchical mediatization. Is it art? Does it matter?
-HL
