Within the first chapter of But is it Art, Cynthia Freeland refers to Lucy Lippard's “three pronged” approach to analyzing Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ by considering it’s material properties, its content and its contextual qualities. I’m sure this is a basic model for critiquing art that she’s adopted. I find Lippard’s approach particularly relevant to contemporary and postmodern art, as the context of these artworks is usually appropriated and reflects an increased complexity through its compilation of historical movements and references. Looking at New York artist Fi5e’s Graffiti Analysis as an example, first, I examine the material qualities of the piece. Fi5e created a computer program which captures the strokes of a graffiti artist’s pen, translates the pen stroke into pixels, captures them in a computer and then projects them through a digital projector onto any surface. This allows the artist to tag any surface non-permanently, in any size, and any location. This is in direct opposition of the typical permanence of graffiti’s spray paint to a building, car or wall.
Graffiti has always been challenged as an art form because artists use it as a rebellious means of defacing property to express idealisms. Fi5e’s projection allows graffiti to be stripped of this context. Suddenly, a viewer is subject to a laser light show (of sorts) and can look beyond the negativity that is often attached to a work of graffiti. The projection is temporary, inoffesive and transitory. Participants have the chance to appreciate the taxonomy, which (Fi5e did a separate brilliant piece on) and the semiotic value of a tag. Fi5e’s projections nod toward the inevitability that media culture has on our lives, that we experience it and it experiences us. Oh, I could write endless media theory papers on this, but not now. Finally, the content, the tags that are projected, are collaborative. They’re not just Fi5e’s tag’s, Typically, though not always, graffiti has been an isolated art, refined to self-promotion of beliefs and style of the individual artist. Fi5e has even put a call on his website looking for more collaborators for this project. Lippard’s 3-prongged styles is useful for getting really in-depth with any artwork, though I find it particularly useful for works such as Fi5e’s. In the future, when I visit openings, I’m going to jot down briefly in my notebook next to artist and works that I like: material, content, context. Then I’ll answer them as briefly but succinctly as possible. I think this should become a fine habit to get into for exploring and understanding any artwork.
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