"Sometimes I feel so sick at the state of the world I can't even finish my second apple pie’
Bottom up peaceful movements arise from all different parts of the world and in different forms. Claiming rights, evidencing conflict and creating awareness of struggling situations can help induce peaceful action. Speeches, social development projects and artistic movements have derived from the need to publicly express the necessity to defend others. Triggering the audience is part of creating their response. An anonymous graffiti artist from England puts the worst of the world in evidence. His social commentary, portrayed through his can. Because little is known about him, this is the story of the anonymous graffiti artist from Bristol, England.
Story tells that he was instinctive of the underground scene of his hometown, were he became acquainted with artists and musicians in the late 70’s and then became part of the aerosol boom in the late 80’s. He has ever since portrayed what he considered injustice. Rumor has it that he was photographed twice; but whilst the world’s most recognized newspapers all wrote stories about him, and famous Hollywood actresses framed his cry on their walls; the artist preferred to remain anonymous. One man, Simon Hattenstone has been among the very few to interview him face to face. In the interview, he said, the artist had a silver tooth.
‘I can’t believe you morons buy this shit’ he said after someone bought one of his pieces for over 102,000 pounds. This artist is surely a bad mannered one! He adds ‘When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized God doesn’t work in that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness.’ Children are a recurrent theme in his art.
His critic extends to all areas of core society. Concerning the current era of saturation of messages he senses: ‘The thing I hate the most about advertising is that it attracts all the bright, creative and ambitious young people, leaving us mainly with the slow and self-obsessed to become our artists. Modern art is a disaster area. Never in the field of human history has so much been used by so many to say so little.’ From the beginning, he used stencils.
Between despair and absurdity
One of his recurrent themes is making visible the responsible for the struggle. ‘Fight the fighters, not their wars’ he said one time. This view of the top being the source of conflict can be linked back to his past, when he formed part of the anarchic punk movement. ‘The greatest crimes in the world are not committed by people breaking the rules but by people following the rules. It’s people who follow orders that drop bombs and massacre villages.’ Quite a daring accusation, reported many, to what he added that if one becomes ‘good at cheating then you never need to become good at anything else.’
He plays with many facets of the human condition from an anti war, anti imperialism, existentialist outlook. Common critiques are greed, poverty, hypocrisy, boredom, despair, absurdity…Describing his political nature he has declared that sometimes he feels ‘so sick at the state of the world’ he can’t even finish his second apple pie. Mass over consumption was also once criticized by the painter who wrote ‘A recent survey of North American males found 42% were overweight, 34% were critically obese and 8% ate the survey’.
But how is this artist coping with hard critics as he is receiving? ‘People either love me or they hate me, or they don’t really care’ he says. Seen as vandalism, ‘because nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit’, his art confuses many, amuses much and pisses off some.