When the city falls into a deep slumber, Prasanth Baskaran tiptoes out of his house. Like a shadow, he walks along abandoned railway buildings, a maze of slums and smelly narrow lanes, in search of inconspicuous walls. And when he finds a gloomy cemented structure, or a moist one, he stops and sprays his name all over it. Look out for ‘Dibs 132’ in bright hues — that’s his ‘street name’.
The night strolls, however, stopped a year ago. Now, Dibs 132 and his associate, Akil, don’t have to be the guys-who-should-not-be-seen. They are free to do their graffiti, rather, encouraged to do so. They are commissioned by offices, clubs and area councillors to brighten up spaces, thanks to a movement that kick-started in the beginning of this year.
In January, the Goethe Institut brought international artists from Spain, the U.S. and Germany to paint walls in the city, as part of the first edition of Conquer the Concrete, curated by Georg Zolchow. Over the next two weeks, the artists, along with those in the city, diligently painted around 20 walls. The one on the wall opposite the airport, another in Egmore station, yet another in Besant Nagar facing the sea, are among the many that stand testimony.
“I think the sight of a bunch of artists, including foreigners, armed with spray paints and brushes in their hands, colouring the otherwise neglected walls, opened the eyes of the people in the city. It gave them an exposure to this medium. Slowly, we are seeing street art and graffiti being accepted,” says Prasanth. “Until the event, many a time, we were denied permission to paint the walls, simply because they thought we were going to advertise some product, or motivate people politically,” he sighs.
Prasanth and his team of three, called The Third Kind Graffiti Crew, collaborated with artists like SatOne (Munich), Base23 (Berlin) and LOOK the Weird (Germany) during the art project, and have worked on around 10 walls since. As far as underground graffiti is concerned, it turns out that there are many embracing the ‘hip-hop art’. Prasanth almost raps their names — Dopz, Rey, Verbal Screw, Peep, Scar, Zin, Dud, Vijz and Madras Bombsquad. “You can see their tags on the blue street name boards, trains and bus stops,” he says.
For Karthik from Art Lab, a city-based group of street artists, which did a massive art at Park Station as part of the festival, the event was a boost to paint more on the streets. Muralidharan Alagar of Chennai Weekend Artists concurs. He and his team went on to paint the walls of the ICF Rail Museum a month after the festival, and are all set to add colour to walls in Mylapore. Namrata from The Paint Box, a group which gathers during weekends to paint city walls along with a group of volunteers, not necessarily artists, is amazed at the number of people interested now. One example of such a group is Chitlapakkam Rising, which aims at making Chromepet colourful.
Back in Germany, Georg probably couldn’t have sensed this slow revolution that he started. Now in the city for the second edition of Conquer the Concrete after almost six months, Georg casually remarks, “Well, I can see relatively more art on the streets now.”
This time, instead of bringing a group of artists, Georg decided to take the medium to students. A four-day intensive workshop, that ends today, had Georg and street artist Note teaching the students of Fine Arts from Stella Maris College and the Government College of Fine Arts how to use stencils, spray paints, rollers, etc. The theory classes had popular names like Guess Who, the artist who shot to fame during the Kochi Biennale for his provocative art on walls, and artists Parvathi Nayar and Shilo Shiv Suleman talking about the street art movement, which is still in its nascent stage in Chennai.
“Street art is a big thing abroad. Here, it will take a while. The first edition of Conquer the Concrete helped overcome certain prejudices about the art,” says Parvathi, whose 20-foot sculpture, ‘A Story of Flight’, rests in front of Mumbai airport.
According to her, the medium broadens the interaction between art and people, and helps one connect with the city in certain ways. “It need not be provocative or challenging always; art can simply raise issues without providing answers, or just help transform the street to be a little fun and vibrant,” she says.
Sadly, there is isn’t much street art besides posters on cinema and politics in Chennai. “And an attempt by artists to tweak it into something sensible hasn’t happened yet,” she says.
This overkill of posters and commercialisation is what artist Guess Who calls ‘Visual Pollution’. To tackle this, he carries his anonymous self to several cities. His Banksy-style stencil works include a malnutritioned kid holding a board saying ‘Free wifi for all’, and Mona Lisa covered in jewellery — a satirical take on society’s deficiencies.
Or, there is another way to deal with this ‘pollution’. “You can do what the French artist Zevs did,” suggests Note. “He cut off the figure of the model from a coffee advertisement poster and sent a note to the brand asking for ransom in exchange for the model,” he adds with a laugh.
