SITES OF SOCIAL SPECIAL INTEREST / SSSI
EXHIBIT NO.1 – Bristol Street Subway, Birimingham (UK)
Title of the site specific exhibition: SUBWAY
Launched 1st Jan 2008. Ends 1st Jan 2009.
Preview: 23rd Jan 2008 (see review and pictures: www.createdinbirmingham.com go to ARTS/ Wednesday 23rd Jan.)
DIRECT TO PICTURES
http://flickr.com/photos/peteashton/sets/72157603777924306/
YOU CAN ARRANGE A TALK BY MYSELF AT THE SUBWAY AT A SENSIBLE HOUR IN THE DAY (note the launch happened at 1.30am in the morning and the review at the url above is short and very much complimentary!!)
Initial written context that inspired this particular project (excerpt):
SUBWAY
Performance art investigator and researcher, Harry Palmer, discovers inspiration in a subway in Birmingham - where six children's murals are still on exhibit, despite continued public interference over a prolonged 13 year period.
LOCATION: Bristol Street Subway next to St Lukes Church, Birmingham (UK)
Cycling around Birmingham in the West Midlands is a joy! We have the obvious dangers of course, yet we also have a superb canal network that is our secret nature reserve – threading itself into (and out from) Gas Street basin in the city centre, to places that once took far longer to get to (today, it only takes 2 hours in the motor car to get to Manchester). Nonetheless, I often cycle Birmingham canal tollpaths and environs (I have not yet ventured to neighbouring cities using these routes) and roaming on my bike is one of my keep fit strategies - cheap and noticeably far less stressful than driving a car.
In February 2007, I travelled on a new route in the city, cycling from Digbeth to Five Ways in central Birmingham, crossing under a subway at the bottom of Lee Bank near St Luke's Church on Bristol Street. It was here where I came across the most striking art that I have seen in recent years. On the one side of the wall ran a succession of six large bright and colourful infant school murals (8 ft by 4 ft each approx). Lit up by powerful fluorescent lights, they were simply 'on exhibit', a by-product of public passageway illumination. I got off my bike and spent 15 minutes viewing and photographing these fantastic paintings. I was absorbed by the parallels I have had as a very occasional painter and my on-going fascination with anti-authoritarian art making and manifestations (I think, on average, I paint about 5 canvases per decade).
Six murals publically exposed.
Created on wood, each of these six pieces of panelling appeared childlike (Rae Nursery Primary is credited on one of them, as well as St Cuthberts). They were playful and seemingly young and naïve. Originally sanctioned as community murals and after 13 years of installation (as I later found out), they had become time-based boards, operating as a surface for future acts of wilful vandalism, enacted over many years. Graffiti depictions of vulgarities were arbitrarily spread across them. Here, for all to see, were the actions of artists in the shadows of life - using various colours of spray-can paints, permanent markers, pencils and stickers to contribute towards further ongoing statements and in doing so alter what was originally intended a long time ago. These were truly unmediated (thoughtless) pieces of genuine art making. I found them inspirational. These six murals were now part of a wider community tapestry.
How the subway relates to my art making.
For an idiosyncratic creator, St Lukes subway on Bristol Street, categorically reinforced my joy in art making which strives to ignore the purveying imagery used in the public domain and popular culture. This subway art has benefited from being neglected, ignored. It sets itself against a certain sanitisation and adult / expert looking painting culture (squeaky clean painting), commercial gloss magazines and the bulk of veneer advertising that unfortunately and relentlessly penetrates into the day-to-day public landscape and psyche. Such commercialism and culturalisation attempts to determine the required values that society must abide by. If art work is aesthetically clean, neat and tidy, lacking in offensiveness (basically controlled), then it is possible to allow it to be exhibited. If not, it is unlikely that any such work will get a genuine opportunity to be part of who we are. Standards often coincide with sanitisation! It must abide to the conditions.
Billboard and advertising images in general, lack any of the sophistication that these subway pictures now offered. Revealed amongst the bold graffiti marks, was a wonderful clash of colours - shapes depicting animals and humans, cityscape maps and streets, machinery and domestic scenes. It seemed, somehow, that these additional unauthorised scrapes, marks and graffiti-ing, whilst seriously defacing it, had added to what was already authentic and sincere – both as intent and subject matter (painted pictures of the city, mapped out by nursery children a long time ago). Provocative, genuinely artistic, here in front of me was the culmination of a dialogue presented in the open, over a 13-year period. What most of us would see as meaningless, pointless and appalling was actually very much the contrary. A long-term dialogue was in progress – exposed for all of us to see and anyone of us to potentially engage in.
Back to the bike and the subway.
So here I was, walking up and down the subway with my bike at the far end, leaning against the wall. I continued to smile, scanning these pieces of exposed subway folk art and determine a little bit more of what was being communicated. Abject vandalism, whimsical acts of offensiveness (to think that these six murals would be left alone and remain unharmed would be extremely optimistic).
Back to the subway – second visit.
Later in the year, I re-visited my thoughts on these images at St Luke's underpass. One thing that I personally do is to collect and archive pictures. In this case, I had a photograph of one of the murals on my wall in my studio. Upon closer inspection, I realised that the graffiti tag on one of the images spelt the word 'Debra'. I then started to explore associations between the themes and focus of all six paintings and the additional connections, made over time, concerning the graffiti slang and personal, intimate autobiographies. Was Debra as naïve as the children that had painted the murals in the first place, in that they all enjoyed making visual statements irrespective of the quality of craftmanship?
I was absorbed by the relationship presented between all the makers of this 'ongoing mural art' and the cause and effect for all involved. Was this a pure unadulterated expression unhindered by a certain lack of sophistication? They were seemingly uncontrived, abandoned and exposed, probably meaning little to those who passed by. For me, they manifested a direct return to art making. Art for art's sake. It was direct-impact-art, painted and then altered in such a fashion that would humiliate the likes of Damien Hurst (I understand that Mr Hurst now uses teams of workers to create his ideas which he then takes full financial credit for). Everyone seems subservient to his requests and reinforce his ideas obligingly. A monologue and hierarchy is clear in Mr Hurst's age old convention. You only have to think of Rembrant and many other more recent contemporaries that maintain the status quo)). On the contrary, what we have before us in the subway is un-negotiated disobedience, an assault on culture.
Harry Palmer's performance investigation to try and find Debra. On creating 'performance graffiti'.
On the 18th October 2007 at 4.30pm, I invited Sian Hindle (a Subjective Cartographer – see Footnote No.3) to partake in a tribute to these six murals as well all those who have shared in the agit-prop graffiti campaign. My new art work was a performance investigation which included trying to discover who Debra was. I wanted to introduce myself to them personally. Together with another acquaintance, Mr Si Walker, the three of us went back to St Luke's subway on Bristol street. Sian Hindle began her cartographic drawing and myself and Simon talked to passers-by.
Armed with my letter to Debra, I made myself available to those who may either be Debra or know of their whereabouts. My letter was congratulatory in nature and honoured her presence, validating their street art which contributed to what I thought was an extraordinary public place.
The Letter to Debra (left at the SUBWAY):
Letter to Debra
St. Luke's Rd, Bristol Street (subway underpass).
Hello! My name is Harry Palmer and I am trying to find a person called Debra that uses the underpass to make art. Your wonderful work came to my attention when, several months ago, I spotted your tag on one of the four murals here in the subway near St Luke's Church. I was cycling through the subway at the time.
I don't believe that your work is a form of vandalism but part of a wider art movement which, like all great art, is personal, intense, genuine and needing to be seen. It is an authentic art which is a very rare quality to see these days.
You left your mark on one of the paintings here in the underpass and I personally feel you have added something positive to my day to day experience in and around Birmingham. In this day and age, many of us feel left out of our society, finding it hard to express ourselves, and make a statement. It is refreshing to find other artists at work here in the city of Birmingham that are alive with their art and prepared to leave their mark! I salute you!
If you do want to get in touch with me, but you feel nervous about it, I can only reassure you that my correspondence is genuinely well meant.
You can contact me at:
plot40@hotmail.com
If you just get this letter, I will be delighted.
Eitherway,
My sincere and appreciative regards,
Harry Palmer.
Artist.
Phraseology Performance - Harry Palmer's art at St. Luke's subway.
I occasional create phraseology performance art works in which I take well known phrases and translate them into physical, visual and/or performance literalisms. For example, I have 'Taken a fish out of water'. Here, I worked with local fishermen on the river Avon and took a fish out of water and journeyed myself with fish (only to return the fish safely the same day). This new piece of work which involved the subway was entitled 'The Writings on the Wall. Drawing upon the City.' I sought to create a piece of artwork which used the city to draw inspiration upon as well as re-interpreting the phrase - The Writings on the Wall (which more typically refers to then end of an era, a sad and final end point).
I considered that what I was doing was creating Performance Graffiti – another way of utilising performance art - made in public, intentionally discrete, associated with time-wasting and basically abject and seemingly invalid – another way of scribing. Something many of us would perceive as ridiculous, if not offensive (also within the realms of many of my contemporaries). This, I surmised, had strong connotations to the culture of graffiti art. Equally, we are both 'graffiti outsiders' with a passion for strong self determinism and undoubtedly get a kick out of being disobedient and creative - one way or the other! The overbearing ethos and origins of many of my solo or small collaborative artworks - is that they are nearly always defiant (or deviant); lacking any need for official endorsement (I am highly suspicious of art bureaucrats and producers. I try not allow them to coerce me into any form of concession). Often my performances are quick due to necessity!
At the subway and over an hour long period, we talked to people who made comments like 'nothing to do with me mate!' (I suppose that was a denial) and 'I can paint better. I can paint!' expressed an eager person. We even met a teenager who claimed to have been involved in painting the St Cuthbert's mural 13 years ago, confirming an earlier conversation with another person who claimed the paintings had been there for a very long time (he said, at least 13 years).
Whilst Sian Hindle continued to draw her subjective cartographic map (added her own form of graffiti documentation), I finally left my letters to Debra, placing them near or directly onto the murals themselves. With the performance over, we made our way home.
--EXCERPT ENDS--
FULL STORY WITH PICTURES IS SCHEDULED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE ECCENTRIC CITY 2009. THIS ARTICLE BLOG HAS NOT BE PUBLISHED OTHER THAN HERE exclusively at eccentriccity myspace.
All of the above:
Harry Palmer © copyright 2008