Street artefacts

 

Due to the fine arts revolution and the appearance of new media in the 20 motivations and aims of image creation gained new meanings. Furthermore, parallel to these developments in high art, contemporary folk art also emerged. The origins of the ‘Kilroy was here’ inscription and logo (which gained worldwide notoriety from the 1940’s), is debated even today, but it certainly motivated many people to leave a trace behind them or to convey a given message to the public. Brassai’s 1960’s album titled ‘Graffiti’ for instance depicts the artworks of Parisian street kids and vagabonds. In the early 70’s, a certain inscription spread all over New York: Taki 183. The artist was working as a courier and marked the places he covered with a signature relating to his name and his abode. ‘Seen’ has been writing his name on public places since 1973, and it was his works (together or parallel with those of his contemporaries) which started the spread of the so­called ‘Graffiti­Style Writing’ across the world. The documentary ‘Style Wars’ by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant has also inspired hundreds of artists since its premiere in 1983. Jean­Michel Basquiat and Keith Hering have popularized the aims of street art and public art through their artwork since the 1980’s and at the same time contributed to the elevation of these genres to the level of recognised fine art. The atmosphere of our living spaces is defined both by the consciously planned environment and by its modifications: be they spontaneous or should they serve some alternative purpose.

 

It was the most prolific artist ever who inspired this series: ‘the unknown artist’. My pictures document the imprints the European underground and street culture made on public spaces. My aim was to collect pictures which show the work of multiple artists independent of each other. For them, the aim of creating art was not the production of an artefact to be sold or to be recognised for; rather, it was the release of an impulse the motivations of which were manifold and different from person to person. In certain cases, the incentive was simply to convey an arbitrary message or to decorate a given space – to make it more exciting and unique. During my project I was looking for street artefacts which could aptly illustrate my initial conception in four European cultural capitals: Budapest, Berlin, Paris and London. The series presented here is the essence of my collecting activity since 2007.

Daniel Ferencz                                                                                                                                                                2014