Bubblegum Club

Tag: street art

  • Rights of Admission Reserved // How Gentrification and art washing can destroy the social capital of space

    Rights of Admission Reserved // How Gentrification and art washing can destroy the social capital of space

    When you are tucked comfortably into Johannesburg’s Northern suburbs, the word of inner city enclaves that accommodate you and your neighbours is enthralling. So you make that journey – it’s towering buildings, that one bridge and with every red light, you cautiously gaze at the dense bustle of unfamiliarity. With one turn, the stark difference of your destination will assure you know that you have arrived. Almost every other person will have a takeaway coffee cup in hand and you will be left to figure out of all the cafes on every corner, which actually serves the best flat white. There will probably be an art gallery or two, maybe even three. Black boys will be skateboarding between cars trying to find a parking spot and you will wonder why they can’t use the empty bicycle lanes instead. The weekend market that you most likely came all this way for sells craft beer, artisans baked goods, cold meats, and overpriced international and local cuisine. Once that gets old, there will be a steak house or a concept store stocking local apparel or a pop up juice or gin bar that you can drop by. As you pose for a photo with the street art, you admire the luxury apartments and hired security guards and imagine a life here. Your visit will probably end in a dimly lit bar with an even darker dance floor. When you arise the day after, you will be certain of the lackluster of suburbia so you decorate your Instagram page with this colourful experience and encourage more of your friends to join next weekend.

    Surely, it’s not far fetched to imagine that visits to enclaves in Johannesburg’s inner city are something like that for the people that those spaces have been designed for?

    Familiar with suburban life myself, the city was marketed in a way that confused my understanding of gentrification and rendered it simplistic. To be clear, gentrification is basically when people of a higher income or status relocate to or invest in a low income (and typically “urban”) neighbourhood. The aim is to capitalise on the low property values and in doing so the property value is inflated. This results in the original occupants of the neighbourhood being displaced because they cannot afford to live there anymore.

    Moreover, this re-development of particular enclaves is culture led. Even though buy-to-leave investors seek to hollow out the neighbourhood through gentrification, there are certain landmarks that are salvageable and add to the authenticity of the space. However, through the curation of the space, the culture and character of the neighbourhood is altered. Everything that made that neighbourhood culturally unique is demolished. Consider it a social cleansing. Despite the occupants that have been economically excluded from the space, original visitors that frequented the space will slowly disappear because the social fabric has been gentrified.

    The space now culturally barren uses art as a substitute for culture. Hence the street art and influx of galleries. According to academic art historian, Stephen Pritchard, this “complex deception” is referred to as “Artwashing”.  Artwashing is basically art in the service of gentrification, which ultimately destroys the social capital of a space.

    The establishment of galleries has become frightening because soon after, the gentrification begins. Think the corner of Bolton road and Jan Smuts, a block parallel to an art gallery, which now houses overpriced international cuisine and a sneaker store. Think Keyes avenue – affordable flats were replaced by a mile of eclectic restaurants, a noteworthy bar, sneaker stores, and luxury boutiques to neighbour the art galleries.

    In gentrified enclaves around the world, the prevalence of artwashing has seen the rise to protests by artists themselves. Considering the mainstream rhetoric of the financial status of an artist, how can their work be used to manifest into the spatial expression of economic inequality? Personally, I have not witnessed Johannesburg’s interrogation of arts use in the reconstruction of a space and its culture. One thing that is for sure is that it is happening as the authentic culture of various spaces is being compromised in the name of capitalism.

  • Street art in Egypt with Aya Tarek

    “I used to say I’m not political, but I realised that everything you do is political. Walking down the street is political,” she says. “So, it is political, but it doesn’t have to be propaganda.”

    Although much attention was given to Egyptian street art after the revolution in 2011, the trigger for the Arab Spring, street artist Aya Tarek has been making work since 2008 when she was just 18 years old. She found her fine art classes at the Alexandria University too restricting, and so she cleaned up her grandfather’s studio and invited her friends over to experiment with non-traditional art forms. The walls all over Alexandria soon became her canvas.

    “I think Downtown Alexandria inspired everything I do. The architecture from back then was really great. I used to hang out and see these amazing buildings in Art Deco. Even during the 90s, the city was stuck in the 60s, so the comics I used to buy were from the 60s. Everything was time capsuled in this era and we didn’t have anything else. So it was like I was in a different era, in this era,” Tarek explains in an interview with Cairo Scene.

    Challenging the institutionalized approach to art creation and art display, her work has seen her travel to Beirut, Berlin, Cologne and Frankfurt. Her work has seen her recognized as one of the first serious street artists from Alexandria. This caught the attention of independent filmmaker Ahmed Abdallah, and led to Tarek being featured in the film Microphone, which explores Alexandria’s art scene.

    Tarek participated in a successful exhibition titled White Wall Beirut where she and a number of other street artists from around the world were invited to create work in the Beirut Art Centre, as well as around the city. Receiving a positive response to her work, Tarek commented that she prefers making work on the streets and not within exclusive art walls. By creating work on the streets people who are intimidated by galleries and museums are able to engage with her work.

    Her contribution to the White Wall exhibition

    While Tarek appreciates the attention given to artists after the revolution in 2011, she tries to shy away from making her work directly political. She explains that she would like her work to seen for its artistic value and not simply because she is an Arab woman creating work within a highly contested political environment. Despite this desire she acknowledges the fact that existing and creating cannot be divorced from politics.

    Check out more of her work on Facebook.

  • King ADZ x Nando’s: Documenting Johannesburg’s street art scene

    Johannesburg. The city with an electric energy that often has people forming love-hate relationships with the lifestyles it engenders. The streets are the storytellers of the city’s complex history. Bright, colourful characters and lettering have been woven into the city streets by well-known and emerging street artists, providing a layered and living alternative documentation and form of expression.

    King ADZ was asked by Nando’s to come to Johannesburg and make a documentary that looks at the rise of street art through a collaboration with the young street artist Karabo Poppy Moletsane. In conversation with artists and cultural commentators, the evolution of these artworks is tied together with the evolution of the city. Street art has opened up the doors to the art world and removed its elitist connotations, and the value of this art form is demonstrated through revealing how it is shaping the lives of a new creative generation. Artworks that through its very existence breaks down ideas of what art should look like, who can view it and how it should be displayed. Making the streets the gallery and those walking by its viewers, admirers and critics. Discussions paint a picture of how street art blends with protest, art, celebration and freedom of expression.