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1
Introduction
Latin America is a large and complex region featuring diverse cultures, landscapes, habitats and histories. In his memoirs, the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda described Latin America as the âcontinent of hopeâ, alluding to both the unfulfilled promise of the regionâs peoples and their unwavering spirit of perseverance in the face of social and political upheaval. Although Latin American states have made enormous political and economic strides in recent decades - from the consolidation of democratic governments and improvements in the status and recognition of indigenous peoples to reductions in inequality - there remain a great many challenges to freedom and prosperity. Moreover, the region as a whole remains decisively shaped by dramatic social and political change seen in the last century. Over the course of the twentieth century, Latin America bore witness to swings back and forth between civilian and military rule, interventions and alliances formed on the basis of superpower rivalry during the Cold War, as well as ongoing struggles to come to terms with the social and economic fallout from the colonial era. Together, these experiences have made Latin America an especially fertile ground for scholarly investigations into questions of power and âpolitics by other meansâ.
A range of theorists, including Oliver et al. (2003), Goodwin and Jasper (2014) and Ramos and Rodgers (2015), have described social movement activity as âpolitics by other meansâ. In so doing, they appropriate Carl von Clausewitzâs description of war to emphasise how the aspirations, methods and consequences of political activism represent an extension of conventional institutional and democratic politics. Of course, social movements, defined as organised sets of constituents pursuing a common political agenda of change over time (Batliwala 2008), do interact with state systems to produce modest reforms such as enhanced political participation and policy adjustments. However, their actions can also contribute to much broader processes of socio-political change, even wholesale shifts in the political system. Social movement actors have often found novel ways to circumvent, by pass or disrupt the system and their influence may even extend to sparking insurrection and revolution (Johnston 2011).
To depict forms of political activism as âpolitics by other meansâ is to propose wide and encompassing parameters for what constitutes politics and who counts as a relevant political actor. For RanciĂšre (2010; 2011), what is recognised as political action is far from fixed, and this dynamism is built into the very meaning
of âdoing politicsâ. He writes, â[p]olitical action consists in showing as political what was viewed as âsocialâ, âeconomicâ or âdomesticâ. It consists in blurring the boundariesâ. More to the point, social movements interact with state systems and societies in a wide variety of ways, often âblurring boundariesâ by recasting economic, social or cultural issues as political ones and bringing them to the attention of new constituencies. In recent decades, social movement scholars have put a great deal of energy into understanding how activists mobilise support and articulate their concerns to broader audiences (see for example: Snow et al. 1986; Snow and Benford 1988; Taylor and Van Dyke 2004). But activists donât just contest and politicise culture, they create it too. In Latin America, cultural producers - poets, painters, writers and musicians - have often been at the forefront of movements for political change. However, existing social movement scholarship offers only a very limited toolkit for understanding the role of art and creative expression in contentious politics. Recent publications on Latin American social movements in particular tend to neglect these influential modes of political claim-making and expression, focusing more on the evolving political environment and the complex relationship between neoliberalism, globalisation and democracy in the post-Cold War era (see Johnston and Almeida 2006; Petras and Veltmeyer 2011). The research presented in this book seeks to address these gaps by exploring the cultural productions of activists in Latin America and by honing in on a specific type or category of âpolitics by other meansâ. This book is about âpolitical street artâ.
The category of âpolitical street artâ
Most people would claim to have a pretty good idea of what street art is, and yet many of the most common definitions, on close inspection, appear somewhat strained or inadequate. As a first caveat, the characterisations that are offered of street art are often bound up with individualsâ particular and prior experiences, ideologies and pre-formed aesthetic preferences. So for some, street art may be seen as a symbolic re-appropriation or âtaking backâ of the public space - a democratising act with anti-capitalist and/or anti-authoritarian undertones. Meanwhile for others, inscriptions on urban surfaces remain an act of nuisance or vandalism: something to be penalised and discouraged rather than conflated with âartâ as such. Of course, as Belfiore and Bennett (2008) highlight, the question of what constitutes âartâ in the first place has puzzled theorists since the very beginnings of philosophical enquiry and debates are still ongoing. Today, the main battle lines are drawn between those who ascribe to a functionalist understanding - that âartâ must serve some preordained purpose, whether spiritual, pedagogical, cultural or political - versus those who ascribe to a procedural or institutionalist understanding. The latter suggest that only the aggregation of institutions involved in the âartworld(s)â such as museums, galleries and critics may confer the label of âartâ unto an object (ibid.). Depending on which understanding one ascribes to, street art is likely to be recognised and valued in markedly different ways. Although certain forms of street art are slowly gaining institutional acceptance, the prefix âpoliticalâ quite evidently implies that the street art under focus in this book is understood to serve a purpose.
Existing work on political street art tends to focus on one of three characteristics: its social nature; ephemerality; and, its relationship to the public space. Robert Sommerâs (1975) exploration of muralism in the slums and ghettos of North America provides one of the earliest academic engagements with street art. For him, street art is a complex phenomenon âthat includes many ingredients - painting done in the presence of an audience, the rhythm of crowds, interaction with local gangs, the hostility of drunks, the watchfulness of the police, zoning regulations and sign ordinances, and protection and maintenance by disinterested third partiesâ (Sommer 1975: 7). Sommerâs emphasis on interaction with audiences - gangs and drunks - as a part of the street art production process underlines the social nature of the phenomenon. Alongside Sommerâs definition, Lyman Chaffeeâs (1993) seminal study of Political Protest and Street Art makes reference to collective expressions through largely ephemeral media including posters, wall-painting, murals and graffiti. Notably, Chaffee also considers âauxiliary formsâ of ephemera - for example political stickers, t-shirts and banners. He treats these as individual expressions, although they are nonetheless social in the sense that they tend to demonstrate support for a shared cause or system of values.
The ephemeral quality of street art is another characteristic brought into focus by muralists, graffiti writers and the various commentators that seek to define their activities. Chicago muralist John Weber wrote in his Technical Notes on Materials and Techniques for Mural Painting (1972) that even under the very best of conditions, an exterior mural would be unlikely to survive for more than thirty years. Chaffee highlights that other forms - graffiti, posters and street performance, for example - tend to have a much shorter âpublicâ life, being routinely battered by the elements, painted over or otherwise destroyed. Yet, for those that produce street art, the issue of ephemerality and the fact that works may not survive long is rarely of great concern. Indeed, many street artists attribute a kind of democratic value to the ongoing cycle of creation and destruction. As London street artist Mutiny (2015) writes,
[Having your work painted over] is all the natural part of the cycle of street art. All street artists know this and accept it as part of the deal. This is, after all, the ephemeral nature of street art. Itâs mine and itâs yours - it belongs to everyone.
As such, street art often appears to have the distinguishing feature of moving along with the times. This stands in contrast to the aims of museums and the more traditional galleries, in which temperature, light, humidity and interactions with artworks are carefully managed so that artifacts might be preserved for the long term.
Linked to claims about the social nature and ephemerality of street art are a number of questions about its relationship with and to the public space. In the quotation from Sommer (1975) above, the category of âstreet artâ covers that which is produced outdoors, where the participation, reactions and rhythms of the community may rub off on the artist/s and find their way into the meaning of the work. For Chaffee (1993) and others, the public location and visibility of street art interventions are key to their political meaning. By disturbing or subverting the aesthetic and cultural codes established by governing bodies and corporate advertisers, street art provides a âtalk backâ mechanism for the public. It may even offer a cue for witnesses to envision the world around them differently.
Yet, the relationship between street art and the public space may be rather more complex than this since there are, as Riggle (2010) notes, innumerable ways of using the street as an artistic resource. One can make use of open spaces for urban displays and installations, incorporate objects found on the street into a 3D constructions, or even âjamâ existing technologies of communication that have been employed on behalf of states and corporations. Notably for Riggle (2010), street art is distinguishable as such, only if: i) creative and material use of the street is internal to the meaning of the art; and, ii) if that meaning is fluid and free from functional constraints imposed by the market. However, the extent to which street art can free itself from market imperatives is today in question. As technological advances have made it simpler to document, map and share images across the world, the emerging popularity of certain forms of street art has not gone unnoticed by governments and corporations who have themselves taken steps to incorporate the medium into urban regeneration programmes, advertising and commerce. Since the 2000s, some governments have moved to decriminalise graffiti and others have created âfree painting zonesâ in urban centres. Works by internationally recognised street artists now sell for hundreds of thousands of pounds on gallery circuits. In 2012, as London councils began a street âclean-upâ operation ahead of the Olympic Games, street art interventions by Britainâs Banksy were granted exceptional status (CafĂ© 2012). These shifts prompt us to ask political questions: why, for example, should states seek to neutralise and appropriate street art in the first place? And importantly, to what extent does the increasing marketisation of street art undermine its power as a disruptive technology and form of critique?
With the above-mentioned debates and sensitivities in mind, this book offers up the term âpolitical street artâ as a loose category for interventions whose creative and material use of the street is in some way tied to their political meaning. The definition is deliberately broad and seeks to make space for the consideration of overt and non-overt forms of politics that manifest in and around street art. In other words, it holds that to be political is not just to express political opinions but rather to be oriented toward society and to engage with its variegated terrains of power.
Researching political street art in Latin America: choices and challenges
Political street art - posters, wheat-pastes, graffiti, murals and street performance, among other forms - has a familiar, distinctive and indeed pervasive presence in cities across Latin America today. To take one recent example, a week before the inaugural game of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, a vibrant wall-painting of a boy crying hysterically as he is served up a football instead of dinner, went viral across social media outlets. The painting, by Sao Paulo based artist Paulo Ito, was widely interpreted as an indictment of the FĂ©dĂ©ration Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and became a symbol of popular discontent with the World Cup (Ryan 2014). Political street art also has a long history in the region, emerging alongside the shift to mass politics to provide a âlow technology medium of communicationâ and mobilising tool for pro-system and anti-system forces alike (Chaffee 1993).
As this book will endeavour to show, political street art has provided a unique resource for groups that have been denied access to institutionalised channels of communication. Time and again, Latin Americans have taken to the streets and to the walls, armed with paintbrushes, aerosol cans, stencils or posters. They have intervened in the public space in ways that amplify and give form to their opinions and feelings, demonstrating the power of political street art in combatting forms of âexcommunicationâ (Mattelart 2008) that arise from socio-economic inequality and repression.
Figure 1.2 âMemeâ by PauloIto, 2014
While it may be the case that under authoritarian regimes city walls are one of âthe only places where [artists can] talk back to tyrantsâ (NPR 2013), to suggest that street art is an inherently participatory, non-violent and democratic model of expression would be inaccurate. Indeed, in Latin America, the state has itself been no stranger to the production of street art. Mendoza and Torres (1994) explain that the history of muralism can be linked to the earliest periods of Spanish settlement in the Americas, with the first murals representing the doctrines of both Church and State. In the more recent past, muralism and other forms of wall-painting have often accompanied state experiments in both revolutionary socialism and authoritarianism.
The legacy of the Mexican muralists in particular, has been felt across the region. The Mexican Mural renaissance was kick-started shortly after the end of the Mexican Revolution in 1921, when José Vasconcelos, t...
