The 21st Century Mural
The Jerusalem Redux is a mural. What does this mean? To scale by design in the ANALOGUE art spaces it WOULD hang at 12 x 32 feet — approximately the size of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica.
In the VR Museums of today and tomorrow this work could scale to 2 — 3x the size of Guernica. The now Infamous Collector, Poet, and quite possibly the 21st century’s Peggy Guggenheim, BlockMuse, managed to out bid many to secure Genesis (Graffiti) Walls 1 & 3 which he has affixed to the outside walls at the entrance of his BLOCKMUSE-SEE-EM (2–3x the scale of Guernica).
The digital revolution spearheaded and fortified by the emergence of NFT market platforms has unleashed a new founded potential for exploring the monumental format of mural arts. Murals are mankind’s first art:
30–50k year-old cave murals found around the world were man’s first attempt at signatory messages, meant as both record and education for future generations, formatted as massive and sweeping gestures of social good will. Cave art is mankind’s first public art. murals are defined as public art works presented in publicly accessible spaces. The modern history of muralist works only bolsters this definition.
The mural tradition often produced art of socio-political messaging, laying claim to pop-cultural trends, important historical narratives, and almost always bearing witness in some symbolic way to the trials and tribulations of the day.
Notably after the Mexican Revolution at the start of the modern art period the emergence of los tres grandes (“the three greats”) — José Clemente Orozco (1883 — 1949), Diego Rivera (1886 — 1957), and David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896 — 1974) — possibly the greatest examples of how life’s struggles can develop into the narrative content of murals. All three artists were actively consigned to create mural art as public social commentary around the world. In 1921 in a manifesto written by Siqueiros, muralism was defined as the art of social and political engagement. Muralism provides a chance to talk about the intersection of art and politics at the street level of everyday working class people. Becasue Murals are massive in size they take as their canvas the sides of buildings and the great walls of public works spaces.
As a muralist I must ask myself what can this public art accomplish? If muralism is monumental and public, how are its conditions different than small, private works of art made for consumption by the art market and its institutions? But the NFT revolution has liberated the muralist to make public art that can be collected by private entities. The great walls of 100 years ago are even greater in a VR space. Collecting mural art has never before been possible. Today it is possible.
With this new freedom I have ventured to reinvigorate the history of murals, to carve a path for other would be muralists to follow step. Art of the 21st century cannot avoid political actioning, cannot avoid the responsibility to bearing witness to social injustices rampant the world over. We live in time of event horizons — any number of catastrophes loom depending on your location, race, religion, gender, sexuality, metal health, wealth status…everyplace on earth is a hot bed for some injustice! Earth itself is burning up with a fever of disease contracted from Humanity!
We must avoid making art for art’s sake, instead let every artist bear witness and scream from the mountaintops! Let us speak our most truthful understanding of the world. Let us avoid pandering to political sides and instead speak to the center of what is there to see, and show, record, interpret, deconstruct, reconstruct, and aesthetically articulate what is...
The mural format begins in the analogue world of walls at roughly 10 x 30 feet, approximately the dimensions of what is considered by many art historians the greatest mural of all time, Guernica, by Pablo Picasso.
A visceral protest of the firebombing of the town of Guernica, Spain, by German Bombers sanctioned by Franco, the dictatorial leader of WWII Spain, who prioritized the execution of artists and writers of the day — most notably Federico García Lorca whose body was never found.
The story of the development of Guernica is a masterclass in mural art. One that I attended in spirit over the years.
Note:
- Murals are narrative storyboards regardless of however abstract, metaphorical, mythical, mystical, or propagandistic…they are narrative works.
- They are organized to represent thematic development that can be linear or non-linear in execution.
- They bear witness to people, places and events both current and historical.
- They demonstrate an argument for or against the content depicted.
- They are often developed to represent sections / chapters / panels of content that interrelate. These sections can be drawn with hard separation or no one at all.
- They are meant to be viewable from great distances.
- They are built records of their time and place.
Do to the complications that come with format scale and narrative grandiosity it is common that murals are thought through in smaller sample studies that are then scaled up. To my knowledge Picasso produced 42 studies in the run up to painting Guernica. Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco carried study sketch books with them on site for constant reference. For Genesis (Graffiti) Wall :: Iteration 4 there are 17 studies the best of which I am minting as companion works to the completed (mural) wall.
For me when a study proves out to be a complete thought that can stand alone I consider releasing it for collection. Many studies do not achieve completion I believe because they are not meant to. They are instead only partial gestures of the a narrative development. I have never had a study remain exactly as drawn out by the completion of the wall in which it plays a part.
The history of mural arts gave rise to what we now call the street art or graffiti art movement.
When in the mid 1960’s in Philadelphia the first graffiti art was born. Street art is the natural evolution of the public mural arts movement. Free, public and mostly political visual speech identifying and documenting the world from bottom up.
And here we are today. The digital art world stands as the event horizon of tomorrow’s art history. The technology is uniquely positioned to reinvigorate the Mural art movement for the 21st century. We can now bring our street murals to our virtual neighborhoods, cities, homes, galleries, museums and wherever we see fit to imagine as home for truth in art as bearing witness to life on earth. I encourage everyone to take on a project at this scale and to use the wall for good.
Despite size ratios of approximately 12 x 32 feet (it could hang at 36 x 96 feet in VR) in the analogue art world Genesis (Graffiti) Wall :: Iteration 4 (Jerusalem Redux) was not large enough to complete the whole story as a singular visualized event. It will ultimately be a 3–4 part series. The next GGW will likely take up climate catastrophe. Jerusalem part 2 is some time away from being realized. But stay tuned.
Sincerely,
Art For Anarchists
