Do you recall our visit to the Cheltenham Banksy?
I passed it every visit to my mother and therefore was in a good position (sitting in the passenger seat of a car slowly negotiating a mini roundabout) to observe the story as it unfolded.
First the famous graffiti artist known as Banksy decorated the white rendered end wall of a dilapidated terraced house in Cheltenham, around a telephone box with a picture of spies listening in to the person making the phone call. This was a witty remark about Cheltenham which is so posh the Salvation Army recently saved the town from having its first lap dancing club. In this lovely Regency town, just outside, is the UK government listening post. It is a large employer in the town and quite interesting to think that when you are having polite tea in a teashop there or buying your undies in uberswish department store Cavendish House absolutely anyone could be listening in, though I think what they do rather more often is to listen out.
My mother, who was there just after the war when my father built by hand in his weekends the first house he ever built which was featured in the Wendy Craig series ‘Butterflies’, remembers plots of land being up for sale all over the town, including the one on which the Government listening post was being built, which was so large it had to have roads diverted round it. At the time everyone was looking for places to build houses after the war and the government of the day was looking for places to build facilities to stop a war happening again. Bletchley Park, where the code breakers had worked to crack the Enigma Code that had shortened the war so significantly, had been a place bolted on to what existed in a rush. It must have seemed like a very good idea to design a purpose built facility in peacetime. I’m quite sure other governments did exactly the same thing at pretty much the same time.
What was a life saving idea at the time has become seventy years on the Big Brother that George Orwell was so worried about. Every move we make, someone somewhere is watching us, though not, apparently, closely enough to stop terrorism.
Or to stop vandalism. Here is what I saw when we passed the Bansky last week.
It is instructive at this point to remember that the original painting is also graffiti. Want a closer look?
Walk with me right up to it if you can bear to do so.
I find my first reactions are those of the school teacher I used to be. I want to snatch the crayon doing the scribbling on top of the work of another pupil and throw it in the bin. In theory Parksy is a street artist who parodies the work of Banksy. This isn’t parody. This is just vandalism.
Some would argue that the original work is also vandalism of what was originally just a nice white wall.
Can you vandalise vandalism? What do you think, trench coat man?
And I love the technical chap, the boffin on the other side.
Why would you write ‘feet’ on the face of a boffin? What is the point?
The point is, that in the debate about what is and what is not art, we really all know the answer already. Artists are born and develop over a lifetime. They need to learn their craft and they need a place to show what they have made. They might be doing it on the ceiling of a chapel, on the wall of a building, a table at a craft fair or the pages of a satirical magazine. If they are true artists they will master their craft until they can use it with facility to make the point they wish to make. Great art has a job in the world, which is why it has existed as long as we have. It fulfils a function that is not merely decoration. Art holds a mirror to life. It does not matter if it is the art of words, the art of a two dimensional picture, the art of a three dimensional sculpture or artefact, the art of dance, music, song, film, cartoon, acting or any other form of artistic expression. If it is done with skill, sincerely and from a strong desire to make a point, it is art.
True art makes us look at ourselves. It shows us the warts and the beauty. It tells us what it is to be human. Great art is instantly recognisable because it provokes emotion in us. If you cry in the Sistine Chapel, gasp in the cinema or laugh at the cartoon in the paper you are in the presence of art and you do not need anybody to explain to you that it is good, you already know.
In the many years that I interviewed artists, I found quite a few real artists. Every single one of them had experienced people reacting strongly to whatever it is they make. I have also encountered a lot of wannabies and every single one of them talked about advertising, marketing and selling. These are not artists, these are salesmen.
You can sometimes find salesman and artists working together, the salesmen run galleries and shows and magazines. Sometimes they help the artists and sometimes they just make money out of them.
And then there are jealous people who are not prepared to learn the craft and have nothing to say at all. You can spot them quite easily. They copy. They might be copying an unmade bed, or using the instructions from a book to turn out ‘one like that’. They are fairly easy to spot because they are carrying the wrong thing. It could be a contract, it could be one spray can of one colour, or it could be a machine gun.
Beware of people in the presence of art carrying the wrong thing. They are not artists.
Listen out for them.
When you hear of them, shun them.
Turn away.
When you hear, or feel, or see, or get a sniff of real art, even a peek
savour the moment, enjoy it, celebrate it, listen to the message, absorb it and let it become part of you. Improve your knowledge because of it, alter your thinking because art has changed your mind.
Art is the human conscience at work in the world, focussed through one individual at one point of time. It connects your synapses to bring you the truth. The truth is that there will always be those who do not want you to hear the truth.
Don’t let them scribble on your ears. You just keep listening.
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JaneI’mCharlie.com