Tagging, in this neighbourhood at least, constitutes a remapping and appropriation (signing) of the streets – of course its banal, its about repetition. Of course its maladjusted, spiteful, narcissistic but it is also, truly, ludic.
Art, which often made claims about its subversion is still a discourse at the edges of which policemen are to be found. The formal legitimacy of Twombly’s marks are debated but beyond the (spurious) elevation of a few ‘classics’ to the status of gallery ready canvases the constantly appropriated, re-appropriated and overwritten texts that flow around the city are literally surplus. Un-monetised.
Art? Who cares? It’s there whether you like it or not and the “social conscience” exhibited by ever dull relational aestheticians finds it sometimes hard to allow for subversion, intervention or provocation. Essentialy unwanted, if not undesired.
Perhaps when the illustrators move in, then indeed the party is over but for now at least, here, those tags mean deflated property values, which mean in turn lower rents. The American and British executives that have been snapping up property stay away. They are persuaded that this is a high crime area.
It is not. It is just in drag.
Momus on Backjumps at the Bethanien Haus