Krink 3.3.08
Earlier in my life, I’d done some work with graffiti.
Sometimes, I used a spray can — but never unless I was paid. That meaning: that I’d do that for advertising sets, props and installations. And for movie titling treatments. Then I came up with this idea of doing graffiti in bathrooms — especially incredibly funky stalls. But instead of lewd jargoning, I’d write things like — Awake!
Wildly and elegantly calligraphic, in strokes of metallic gold and silver, using special dense brushes from Japan which used a highly toxic xylene fluid with metallic particles in suspension. I still have some, but rarely use them. These days. These graffiti expressions, particularly in NYC, gathered a kind of reputation. I remember people talking about them, in the Village, other spots. Other places. Bear in mind that these were particularly rank locations, bar stalls. Interesting — quick in, quick out.
Now I just use my finger on the glass.
Like this:
But then I heard about Krink. And it all came back. Alan Ket. And the character of the vandal, street art (and Marc Ecko).
http://www.youtube.com/alan_ket
There are some stories to sort out — in the balance between the man, Alan Ket, the graffiti walls of Marc Ecko’s gallery show and installation, angst in NYC (and the reasonable despising of marked and marred city property) and the intrusion of street art.
I will say, however, there’s something incessantly fascinating to me about the raw materials of art. For as long as I’ve been in the space of making things, making art — I’ve held a profound love of the materials. The inks, the handmade paper, the brushes, boards, pigments, ground pigments, compass scribes, scoring tools and bone folders. For now, and for ever. Krink has another spin. And it’s memorable. Scent, touch, texture, the character of the drawn stroke…
More to explore, here: http://www.krink.com/
While I’d never condone graffiti, nor practice it, there’s a legend there; it’s a craft, it’s a statement.
Message found. Story told. Materials intrigue.