Aesthetics
Canterbury Cathedral is in the news for having an art installation in the form of graffiti. The medium is removable stickers as opposed to being painted directly on the walls, so I don’t feel obliged to get very indignant about it. I do think it’s butt-ugly though.
I’m just not a fan of the style. Sorry not sorry.
Since we’re on the subject of art and fandom…there’s this muralist in Seattle who’s considered very hot shit, and his work is everywhere. Until very recently I thought it was a style as opposed to one guy, because I kept seeing it all over the city. You can see where this is going – I hate his work. I think it’s hideous, and I hate the fact that there’s so damn much of it. So I’m curious to see if anyone here likes it.
He’s very keen on the local mythical beast the sasquatch, and has done many renditions of it. He signs all this work with “henry” in a cartoon bubble.
I just think that’s ugly. It’s fine as a doodle in your own living room, but plastered all over the city…not so much. Am I crazy?
If you’re curious and want to see more, googling “henry murals seattle” produces a torrent.
I wouldn’t know if you’re crazy, but you’re not wrong about that mural!
Thank you!
Yeah, ugly. And sorry about having the bigfoot craze there – when I was in Hastings, we suffered with the Bigfoot museum, and for some reason, the woman who ran it couldn’t understand why none of the science teachers at the two colleges were coming out in her support.
It’s the myth-joke-local celebrity Bigfoot in this case, of course. But it’s still ugly!
It’s got a certain charm, but not really my jam.
Actual graffiti in the wild is mostly indecipherable; nicknames, random misspelled words, weird drawings, etc. It looks like what they have there at the cathedral are phrases and questions in the cartoonish graffiti lettering style, well not really, but reminiscent of. I don’t think they captured the gritty element of graffiti at all. It’s like a shallow AI rendering of something more real. Kind of pathetic if you ask me. Graffiti is quasi-artistic vandalism, and I have never really seen the point. I remember a time when not every single freight car on the tracks was splattered with the shit, only a few.
The invention of the spray can brought with it a whole new dimension for the artistically-inclined vandal He is located somewhere along a continuum linking Attila the Hun to Vincent van Gogh; though much closer to the former than to the latter.
I agree on that being faux-graffiti at the cathedral; it honestly looks to me like the school folder stickers you’d get in one of those repurposed bubblegum machines I still occasionally see in grocery stores and family restaurants. And of course those are ‘safe’ questions, meant to be answered with a Biblical citation, to comfort ‘doubters’. Note the lack of, “Explain childhood leukemia, you fucker!”
Similarly, Henry reminds me more of a mascot image rather than actual graffiti.
I should note: I actually like some graffiti art (see: Banksy, for the top-of-form example), in the same way I like some movies and books–it takes a mixture of time and talent to actually be able to do any art form well, and graffiti just has the downside of being very public, meaning that during those early periods when you either suck because you don’t know what you’re doing, or you haven’t figured out you suck because you completely lack talent, everyone in the neighborhood will be forced to look at your disastrous efforts.
Bigfoot has fangs!?
According to Henry she does, and who are we to dispute Henry??
No, nothing so blunt is going to have survived the sanitizing, homogenizing editorial committee that came up with this display of architectural temporary tattoos, but even the questions that have made it through the winnow of orthodoxy are not so safe, if you’re prepared to look beyond the Bible for answers, or decline to recognize its authority or relevence. (Some of the questions below are from other images taken of the exhibit, more details of which can be found here: https://www.canterbury-cathedral.org/whats-on/events/hear-us/ )
Q: “Are you there?”
A: No, there are no gods.
Q:”Does our struggle mean anything?”
A: No, it is not part of any “plan.” Shit happens for no intrinsic reason. We can bring reason to it, extract meaning and wisdom from things that happen, and apply them to what we do, but these things were not “put” there for us to “discover”. We build meaning from scratch. Life is not “meaningless”, but the meaning and significance we find is the meaning and significance we add to it. Life isn’t a piñata. Reality is not a fortune cookie. The stars are not there for horoscopes. The universe is what it is. We’re the ones adding the baggage.
Q: “Where does love come from?”
A: Love is a natural evolved sentiment which can be seen in animals other than humans. It does not require the interventions or manipulations of a non-existent class of supernatural beings, just like sunlight or metabolism. Gods add nothing to the picture.
Q: “Do you want company?”
A: Granting the existence of the Christian god, he might not need “company”, depending on how exactly that whole “Holy Trinty” thingy works. Historically speaking, most religions have been polytheistic, with lots of gods to keep each other company, and to squabble with. Some saint-heavy flavours of Christianity can start to look awfully polytheistic to the unwary and unitiated, who might not see the distinction-without-a-difference that such Christians would offer in indignant protest. Technically, fictional characters can’t really be lonely, or sad, or anything. They have no existence beyond the imaginations of the people who create or read the stories of which they are a part. However real they may seem, they are never going to drive you to bingo, or shovel your walk.
Q: “God, what happens when we die?”
A: Asking a non-existent entity a question like this is a category error. There is no god to answer your question. Any “theological” answer you might receieve has been formulated by humans. Gods don’t write books, or talk to people, or answer prayers because they can’t. Some might claim that these answers come from a god, but it’s humans all the way down. But if you want to know what happens, here it is: you decompose, and all the materials that resided momentarily in/as your body are released for use elsewhere, including other bodies. There is no personal, individual, conscious survival after death. There is no judgement, punishment, or reward. “You” just aren’t, just like “you” weren’t before you were born. Nothing different, and there’s no reason to believe otherwise. We are fleeting arangements of eternal ingedients, briefly collected into and maintained in a form that is aware of itself and the Universe which gave rise to it. We cannot help but be one with everything. Adding gods to this tale short-circuits the proper appreciation of the Universe, and tends to exaggerate our role within it. We are part of an awe-inspiring, terrible wonder, and a mystery, and a miracle, but not a religious one. We have learned that on our own; no gods need apply. No gods can apply.
The Cathedral ‘graffiti’ is just embarrassing. The Seattle example is just lacking in technique and style. Leaves me cold. I’ve seen street art that packs a political or social punch, others that are clever or pretty and one example that makes me feel melancholy and longing every time I see it. That piece lacks everything.
Post earthquake Christchurch a lot of building walls were intentionally given over to artists to decorate – so some large scale works. One funny piece was on a wall behind where a tool shop used to be – painted as a massive shadow board. On the back of the partially ruined statehouse used by the ballet a ballerina doing a pirouette was painted – as seen from above – 15x15m. On a decrepit brick wall nearly four stories high a girls face stares out over a place where people died. Her face is rendered by smudging the red brick with black or while shading accentuating the fragments of paint left on the wall from decades before. You need to be 30m or so back to really see her properly.
In Reykjavik there was some pretty good stuff too.
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