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Writer's pictureJMorgan Photography

The Art of the Street- The last social mouthpiece left.

Updated: May 3, 2020





This Blog installment would immediately require the candour the accompanied pictures illustrate. Saturday, the idea being that it would be a random, yet diligent day, spent travelling around London trying to notice how Street Art conveys the nature of “nowadays” social fabric.


Whilst procrastination, and contextualisation remain an efficient way to examine compelling indicators, suggesting social ills, or fractured Utopian ideals, walking the miles, from borough to borough it became impossible to escape the fact that there was one persistent provocation, despite dotted, remarkably hewed and crafted pieces, and with feeling instances smothering the side of pubs, and night clubs, and back street garages lining entire streets, the singularity in the incitement was a lot of untamed s**t, on a lot of walls, and at it’s core a social indicator hard not to notice.



Walking these miles, taking the time to negotiate what I’m picture taking; what message am I endeavouring to convey, caught up in this one singularity the only exact thing about the reaction, to the street art, was the way it feels, fully conscious of the fact that nothing unique about the feeling makes the culture-specifics ever more apparent, in many respects, and quite candidly the only respect that matters was the distinct hallmark of expression.




It was all very hard-hearted and Black Spartacus in South East London, all very Spike Milligan in the E3 part of east London, the singularity in question emphasising that in the communal context, society is always talking about these things; in affect this one singularity, according to initiated City folk it a narrative that never really talks about these things, and despite the amateur philosophy, and the wax poetry, examples of “bad” street art resonate these things, things that never detract from what society continually deals with, in the manner the populace rarely deals with “things”, and the distinction between “good” and “bad” art apparently really bad oxymorons they are.







Whilst all of the art viewed was not necessarily pleasing to an acquired sense of taste, when after all “we” are all acquired by distinct tastes, it was the universal sensitivities of what I deemed the aggressive art, art without finesse and yet no less compelling, art without attention to tone and subtlety and yet incredibly absorbing, so much so when one occasion had me looking at the lens, after I had looked at what I was about to snap; knowing exactly what it meant to me to take the snap, truth of the matter was the morning parable compelled me to emotively look at myself in the mirror, 10:38 am, the wind and slight drizzle is whirling and I’m having a picture moment, and not look like every day look, it was stand there and speak the stare in your eyes…kind of’ look, occurring to me, that looking at me was the intervening significance apprehending the runaway mood of London city, and in my picture moment the perception of the art hurt way too often, a public art that appears as a lonely persistence massaging emotional capacities; the point of art?





There are beautiful pieces of street art dotted around London, and as long as cities are recognised as symbols of a “system;” the atypical scheme human sensibility, naturally grasps the provocations, referring to the pieces calling for revolution, and vies for the courage to rebel, and those that invigorate dormant imaginations, both latter examples of mood fundamentally retain that one singularity, appreciating that what makes the art poignant, whatever the fashioning is, it becomes what it is because it covers slabs of concrete walls, in cold light of days, street art that unapologetically point to techniques on survival, and tempo of which communicate the make-up of psychological, penetrating cockcrows.


Reverting to the efficiency of procrastination, and never notwithstanding the well-intended contextualisation, street art really is the one real social mouthpiece left, colloquially still relevant it is the in spite of, the checking eyes with a curious look provoking refocus, the get-up on time, arrive on time, this what time had been doing without any thought about the amount of time, up until now, up until lately, up until thinking about the amount of time in all that time.




Standing tall, as if straightening back added colossal to the give’ it large, refocus was rather explicit about the wavering on a delicate balance, between what was, and who are you really? Needless to say, street art really is the last real social mouthpiece left.




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