Issue 45 / 2012
GUESTLIST 17 www.guestlist.net 7
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THE ART AND ACTIVISM OF JORGE RODRIGUEZ-GERADA
STREET ART FEATURE
Ever heard of culture jamming? Or adbusting? Or the anti-consumerist street art movement? Well, so did we, but as embarrassing it is to admit it, we never knew until recently that it was all pioneered in the early 90s by a New York artist who goes by the name of Jorge Rodriguez- Gerada, dubbed 'The King of Street Art'.
Thanks for taking us to school, HuffPost. We are forever grateful, and we feel that we should make up for it by featuring him on this month's street art page. He saw capitalism for the rotten, phony and delusional
ideology that it was,
twenty years ago - before it was cool. Eat your heart out, Banksy-worshipping hipsters.
He got arrested numerous times for 'vandalising' billboards and print ads with his art, but it didn't hold him back. He became world-famous after he got his very own chapter in Naomi Klein's No Logo book, which transformed how a lot of people see the marketing- advertising-consumption
industry.
After that, he really started doing his thing. Presently an established figure in the worlds of art and political activism, his projects are getting bigger and more ambitious, tapping into landscape sculpturing and conceptual
use of
materials - the grandiose Expectation piece he did in Barcelona back in 2008 was a Mandala of Barack Obama, on the beach, made out of 650 tonnes (!!!)
of sand and gravel. All his pieces use local, ecological products which have absolutely no impact on the physical environment, but they do hit the mental in a pretty big way. The Memorylithics collection is a small, understated assemblage of four pieces conveying portraits
sculpted in stone, marble
and brick from centuries ago. Again, the material used speaks for itself, "for a reflection that goes beyond the completion of the piece to focus in its concept, process, and the metaphor that comes forth because of the material chosen."
Anything can be a canvas for an inspired artist, be it a smeared VW Polo, advertising
banners and billboards
or a naked beach. Hopefully one day influential universities such as Central St Martins will acknowledge the value of street art and bring in Jorge and his peers as lecturers - if only to temporarily demolish the snotty of 'the establishment' and show them how it's done foreal.
jorgerodriguezgerada.com Check out more art at
