5/6/14

Punk Politics: The Street Art of Spagnola

Punk Politics


Punk Politics: The Street Art of Spagnola

North Carolina-based muralist Spagnola explains how the Sex Pistols and heads of state have inspired him.

By James Buxton
Spagnola — a superb street artist from Asheville, North Carolina — is the guy behind the meme “Bush Holding the Obama Mask” around Wynwood, Miami. A successful contemporary visual artist, he’s been featured in shows all over the U.S. And last year, he took part in the Kolor Kathamandu project, where he painted with a number of Nepalese artists to create 75 public works of art. His work combines an anarchic energy with a political edge. We asked Spagnola how politics and punk rock have fueled his work.
Why is a lot of your work, like “Bush Holding the Obama Mask,” highly political?
Spagnola: I believe that, as an artist, I have the responsibility to express my opinions when creating public work. I feel like it’s more important to paint things that make us think, than to just paint images that are pretty. I know a lot of artists paint for an other artist’s sake or to impress other people and to show how skilled they are. I tend to paint for the casual viewer with the idea being that somebody who wouldn’t otherwise walk into a gallery might see an image that I’ve created.
Spagnola Monk immolation
One of your pieces depicts the four previous American presidents as punks. What was your motivation behind that work?
It’s really in homage to my major influences, which would be punk rock and, conversely, the other artists who created those images first. Barry Plumber took a photograph of the Sex Pistols in the late ’70s, early ’80s — that’s where the source image comes from. Gee voucher of Crass, the punk band, took Barry Plumber’s image and re-created it with the Pope, Lady Liberty, Margaret Thatcher and the Queen. What I’m doing is paying homage these two other artists and the images that they’ve created, and made it my own. The title of that Crass album that showcased the image was Who Do They Think They’re Fooling; You? These are my sentiments about the Presidents of the United States, and politicians in general.
Spagnola Album cover
What got you into painting on the streets?
I was into graffiti when I was younger. And in 2007 and 2010 I went to Miami for [Art] Basel for the first time and was really impressed with most of the large-scale work that I saw down there. This is what got me into painting publicly.
You also paint a lot of tigers. Why this animal, in particular?
One day, I just woke up with the desire to paint a tiger. One of the reasons why I enjoy painting tigers is because of their expressiveness. There are not a lot of content or messages attached to them, other than the idea of the wild and the unknown.
Spagnola 1
How does the context of your work affect the content?
I tend to have a few different ideas before I approach a wall. Once I get there — and I see the physical space and meet the people attached to it — I get a better idea of what I want to do, what is appropriate for the space.
How about the city?
When I was in Detroit last I almost got hit by a large SUV almost veering off the road while I was looking at the wall. When I was in New York painting the rooftop of 5 Pointz, I got to meet Marley Marl, Just, G Wiz, and a wide array of artists and writers who are extremely influential to me. In general, when I am traveling and painting, there is a small group of people I tend to work with. These people are close to me — our shared experience is always the thing that really defines the trip. Big shout-outs to Ishmael, Patch Whisky, Molly Rose Freeman and Gus Cutty [a.k.a. Gus Is Rich], Daas, Trek6, Chor Boogie, Stefan Ways, Fred Caron, Mona Caron, Jason Botkin [a.k.a. En Masse], Never, Paper Frank, and all the other awesome people I’ve gotten to paint alongside.
Spagnola Meixco
Can you tell us a little bit about the scene in Asheville?
The scene is awesome. There are a lot of really talented artists here — and not a lot of ego, which is really great. I’m really happy I get to live here.
Spagnola red indian

2/28/13

Kolor Kathmandu Timelapse of Saraswati

Kolor Kathmandu: Dustin Spagnola x Daas from Uzair Sawal on Vimeo.
I happened to be in Kathmandu when these artists collaborated for Kolor Kathmandu so I tagged along when they were painting a huge mural at Trinity International College in Dillibazar.

Also, there was a nationwide strike when we were doing this.
http://www.gorkhapatraonline.com/trn/headlines/629-maoist-nationwide-strike-cripples-normal-life.html

It was a great experience to be working closely with amazing artists and a collective of passionate individuals wanting to see a change in the almost non-existent (modern) art scene in Nepal. (disclaimer: from my observation during my short trip)

Shot using Canon 60D, Tamron 17-55mm lens, Samyang 14mm lens and GoPro Hero HD 2.
Edited on Final Cut Pro 7.

Music:
Eye in the Sky (live at Mull Debauch) by Killeur Calculateur
Hooray for Humans by Q and not U

For more information:
www.kolorkathmandu.sattya.org
www.dustinspagnola.com
www.daas-art.com
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saraswati

12/19/12

Tigers 2012



 with En Masse 29th and N Miami in the Wynwood

NW 24th in the Wynwood - Miami


Fountain Art Fair - Living Walls - Miami


Fountain Art Fair - Living Walls - Miami



NW 26th and 3rd-Wynwood-Miami

Wynwood - Miami
River Arts - Asheville, NC

8/1/12

Murals

Murals/Public Work

Bob Moog

Free Tamil
Monk 
Free Tibet

Gandhi
frido kahlo

The Misfits
marilyn monroe and clark gable




Crazy Horse

Bush holding Obama Mask
Forever Tatoo

Bush holding Obama Mask
NW 24th st Miami 

Bush holding Obama Mask
The Arcade
Bush holding Obama Mask
Poland St Wharf
New Orleans 

Frida Kahlo
Miami

Girl Holding Gun
Miami

The Guitarist
Miami

Zapata
Desoto Lounge
Dead Pig
New Orleans



Tops
Asheville, NC






6/5/12



Sunday 

watercolor photo: Dustin Spagnola himself contemplates his work so far of Thích Qung Đuc at the RAD warehouses. I can hardly express the fierce tenacity that he and Ishmael have in putting up their art there - On it every day and standing back and adjusting, composing, creating, it's wonderful to see artists 'in the zone.'

5/24/12

New Work by Dustin Spagnola


Friday, May 25th.
7pm
Satellite Gallery
55 Broadway Street.
Asheville, NC. 


Riot photography is nothing short of dramatic. The figures are stretched and twisted, blood spattered, arms up and out, scared and ecstatic, and on occasion, limp. And it’s intensified when in black and white. 

Asheville artist Dustin Spagnola has taken such figures and cropped and pasted them, in black and white of course, onto an array of canvases for an exhibition at The Satellite Gallery aptly named New Work. A collection of protest imagery has been scattered across red, white and blue spattered canvases. It’s the antithesis of Toby Keith. But that doesn’t imply anti-patriotism. 

For those familiar with Spagnola’s work, don’t expect mass portrayals of the esteemed Civil Rights leaders and African-American cultural icons that he’s been painting for the past few years. He’s left those behind. 

The imagery and background styles are new for Spagnola. And for the fist time in years, the entirety of the show builds on itself. In other words, each painting lends itself to the next, rather than existing as a disconnected ideological dream-team consisting of Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X.

His backgrounds come in layers of red and blue smeared and sprayed with white. Stars occasionally appear in the corners, pulling together the show’s overarching motif: the American flag. The mix of colors behind a white fog screen create murky, tear-gassed landscapes that the figures actively move through. 

On most of the canvases singular figures occupy the lower third section, often popping up from the bottom. It gives many of the works a photographic element. One not tied in realism, but more to action shots depicting partial figures against the greater landscape. He’s effectively echoing the frozen moments of on-the-move foreground figures that we see in riot photography.

There are a few canvas awkwardly split fifty-fifty. Half up top, half on bottom — an artistic faux-pas. On a few, Spagnola’s stenciled in silhouetted cityscapes, such as Paris (there’s an Eiffel Tower). In “What’s Your Reason For Existence, Do You Believe In Anything?” he’s used the half-and-half split in conjunction with an oil rig, a separately reoccurring motif. The masked protest figure jumps across the canvas, but the background’s harsh line makes him hover rather than bind to the canvas. 

And if some of the figures seem familiar that’s because they probably are. 

The painted peoples are lifted from photographs of French student uprisings in May of 1968, late 2000 Muslim protests in Paris and London and the most recent conflicts in Syria. Bruno Barbey, a celebrated French photographer, took some of the most famous photographs of the ’68 student riots, which have been subsequently dissected and reclaimed onto Spagnola’s canvases. 

The centerpiece to this exhibition, and surely the show’s strongest work, “Striving To Be, With Bitter Ideals Of Justice” takes its lineage from the Syrian uprising. A solitary figure rises from the bottom of the canvas, Molotov cocktail in hand. Despite the police wrestling two Occupiers just to the right, this serves as the show’s most violent image. It’s still, almost quite, but not for long. The overlapping of colors creates dark patches against the white. And on this canvas, more so than the rest, Spagnola’s spray-bottle painting method closely mimics blood-spray.

Looking at these paintings, there’s no way to tell who these figures might be. Most have masked faces or are turned away from you. But they are all acting out for what Spagnola deems a basic lack of rights. 

But by no means is he advocating rioting in Asheville, “That’s not the point.” This work serves as commentary on the world’s current state of affairs, namely widespread political and civil unrest. Is there a middle ground? A compromise between violence and the non-violence that often lacks drastic results? “Maybe it’s art,” Spagnola suggests. 

And while talk rises of a possible revival of the American Occupiers’ own movement, these images of mass demonstrations see just out of reach, almost becoming utopian. 

“We are first-class citizen, living in our own liberal utopia, not just Asheville, but the United States,” Spagnola says, “and we can say whatever we want to, whenever we want without fear of being killed.” 

And these things are often heard, but just as often they fall on deaf ears.

Spagnola’s images allude to our desensitization to such protests. National papers give us pictures of mass protests outside of the Kremlin in Russia, bloodshed in central Africa and Greek anarchy while we watch videos of the Syrian uprising on the news, all from a safe distance. So when we pass by a rally in Pritchard Park, they often seem futile, and lack the seriousness that would propel them to gain national attention. 

Among the shows multitude of themes and subject are pigs, records and skateboards. The pigs speak for themselves, so we’ll leave it at that. The records and skateboards meld in with the street-style depictions of the protesters, but double as refuse put to good use: art. And in the window there’s a pyramid-shaped installation made from years worth of empty paint cans, buckets, spray-paint cans and trash. 

There’s also a large-scale painting of Illinois Representative Bobby Rush speaking on the house floor in March. Rush spoke in protest of racial profiling while wearing a grey hoody. And big surprise, other congressmen didn’t like it. Halfway through a two- minute speech the gavel starts and ultimately leads to the representative’s mic being disconnected. 

The Bush-Obama painting resurges once again, but this time as a fully-rendered collaboration painting with Chris King. Spagnola’s use of black and white paintings and cut-outs has been a long-standing point of contention for his foes. Can he paint? This painting serves as a proof that he can do so. But it’s not as striking as its black-and- white counterpart. So it doubles as proof that black and white, particularly in this case, is certainly better.

Review by Kyle Sherard

4/28/12

Review by Kyle Sherard

Dustin Spagnola's New Work

        
Riot photography is nothing short of dramatic. The figures are stretched and twisted, blood spattered, arms up and out, scared and ecstatic, and on occasion, limp. And it’s intensified when in black and white. 

Asheville artist Dustin Spagnola has taken such figures and cropped and pasted them, in black and white of course, onto an array of canvases for an exhibition at The Satellite Gallery aptly named New Work. A collection of protest imagery has been scattered across red, white and blue spattered canvases. It’s the antithesis of Toby Keith. But that doesn’t imply anti-patriotism. 

For those familiar with Spagnola’s work, don’t expect mass portrayals of the esteemed Civil Rights leaders and African-American cultural icons that he’s been painting for the past few years. He’s left those behind. 

The imagery and background styles are new for Spagnola. And for the fist time in years, the entirety of the show builds on itself. In other words, each painting lends itself to the next, rather than existing as a disconnected ideological dream-team consisting of Muhammad Ali, Malcolm X.

His backgrounds come in layers of red and blue smeared and sprayed with white. Stars occasionally appear in the corners, pulling together the show’s overarching motif: the American flag. The mix of colors behind a white fog screen create murky, tear-gassed landscapes that the figures actively move through. 

On most of the canvases singular figures occupy the lower third section, often popping up from the bottom. It gives many of the works a photographic element. One not tied in realism, but more to action shots depicting partial figures against the greater landscape. He’s effectively echoing the frozen moments of on-the-move foreground figures that we see in riot photography.

There are a few canvas awkwardly split fifty-fifty. Half up top, half on bottom — an artistic faux-pas. On a few, Spagnola’s stenciled in silhouetted cityscapes, such as Paris (there’s an Eiffel Tower). In “What’s Your Reason For Existence, Do You Believe In Anything?” he’s used the half-and-half split in conjunction with an oil rig, a separately reoccurring motif. The masked protest figure jumps across the canvas, but the background’s harsh line makes him hover rather than bind to the canvas. 

And if some of the figures seem familiar that’s because they probably are. 

The painted peoples are lifted from photographs of French student uprisings in May of 1968, late 2000 Muslim protests in Paris and London and the most recent conflicts in Syria. Bruno Barbey, a celebrated French photographer, took some of the most famous photographs of the ’68 student riots, which have been subsequently dissected and reclaimed onto Spagnola’s canvases. 

The centerpiece to this exhibition, and surely the show’s strongest work, “Striving To Be, With Bitter Ideals Of Justice” takes its lineage from the Syrian uprising. A solitary figure rises from the bottom of the canvas, Molotov cocktail in hand. Despite the police wrestling two Occupiers just to the right, this serves as the show’s most violent image. It’s still, almost quite, but not for long. The overlapping of colors creates dark patches against the white. And on this canvas, more so than the rest, Spagnola’s spray-bottle painting method closely mimics blood-spray.

Looking at these paintings, there’s no way to tell who these figures might be. Most have masked faces or are turned away from you. But they are all acting out for what Spagnola deems a basic lack of rights. 

But by no means is he advocating rioting in Asheville, “That’s not the point.” This work serves as commentary on the world’s current state of affairs, namely widespread political and civil unrest. Is there a middle ground? A compromise between violence and the non-violence that often lacks drastic results? “Maybe it’s art,” Spagnola suggests. 

And while talk rises of a possible revival of the American Occupiers’ own movement, these images of mass demonstrations see just out of reach, almost becoming utopian. 

“We are first-class citizen, living in our own liberal utopia, not just Asheville, but the United States,” Spagnola says, “and we can say whatever we want to, whenever we want without fear of being killed.” 

And these things are often heard, but just as often they fall on deaf ears.

Spagnola’s images allude to our desensitization to such protests. National papers give us pictures of mass protests outside of the Kremlin in Russia, bloodshed in central Africa and Greek anarchy while we watch videos of the Syrian uprising on the news, all from a safe distance. So when we pass by a rally in Pritchard Park, they often seem futile, and lack the seriousness that would propel them to gain national attention. 

Among the shows multitude of themes and subject are pigs, records and skateboards. The pigs speak for themselves, so we’ll leave it at that. The records and skateboards meld in with the street-style depictions of the protesters, but double as refuse put to good use: art. And in the window there’s a pyramid-shaped installation made from years worth of empty paint cans, buckets, spray-paint cans and trash. 

There’s also a large-scale painting of Illinois Representative Bobby Rush speaking on the house floor in March. Rush spoke in protest of racial profiling while wearing a grey hoody. And big surprise, other congressmen didn’t like it. Halfway through a two- minute speech the gavel starts and ultimately leads to the representative’s mic being disconnected. 

The Bush-Obama painting resurges once again, but this time as a fully-rendered collaboration painting with Chris King. Spagnola’s use of black and white paintings and cut-outs has been a long-standing point of contention for his foes. Can he paint? This painting serves as a proof that he can do so. But it’s not as striking as its black-and- white counterpart. So it doubles as proof that black and white, particularly in this case, is certainly better. 


New Work is on view at the Satellite Gallery, located at 55 Broadway St. Spagnola will also be hosting gallery talks each Thursday at 2 p.m. through May 13. A closing reception will be held May 18. 

4/20/12

New Work at Satellite Gallery 2012

This work is about the current state of citizenry and protest culture.  Oppression is a dominate force in our lives. I am opposed to using force or the threat of force to others. 
My work is process oriented. I layer paint. I use joint compound, latex paint, aerosol, markers, paper, and glazes. 
I believe it is possible to make the world a better place.

Thanks to:
Gabe Aucott, Wren Kelly, Jack West , Nigel Esser, Brooke Rettig, Bill Thompson, Vince Luca, Sam Antaramian, Nathan Lucas, Kyle Sherard, Erin Hurley, Chris King, Ted Harper, Colby Rabon, Sam Johnston, Asa McNeely, Katie Ryder, Jamie Hepler, Galen Bernard, Ish, Clay Kaminski, Eamon Martin, and Ashley Conley



 america, fuck yeah.
 whats your reason for existence, do you believe in anything?
 flag
 capitalism is, indeed, organized crime. and we are its victims.
 wolves
 whats your reason for existence, do you believe in anything?
 striving to be people, with bitter ideals of justice.
 so, where do we go from here?
 you tell me that i make no difference, at least im trying.
 like a trampled flag on a city street.
 flag
 like a trampled flag on a city street.
 your culture alienates me.
 bush holding obama mask
 you tell me that i make no difference, at least im trying.
 dead pig on flag
 senator bobby rush
 you tell me that i make no difference, at least im trying. 
records and decks...