ti
B The Michigan Daily I
michigandaily.com I Thursday, February 21,2008
The Daily Arts
guide to the best
upcoming events
- it's everywhere
you should be this
weekend and why.
BEYOND
Graffiti walks a fine line
in underground art
By Whitney Pow I Daily Fine Arts Editor
ON DISPLAY
"Letters to Sala," a con-
tinuing open exhibition
of rarely seen letters and
photographs from the
Holocaust, is currently in
the Harlan Hatcher Grad-
uate Library Room 100.
The collection is on loan
from the New York Public
Library, and will only be
on display until Feb. 28, so
catch it while you can.
AT THE MIC
Jef Brannan brings his X-
rated sketches and song
parodies to the Ann Arbor
Comedy Showcase this
weekend. Brannan has
opened for acts as diverse
as comedian Robert Klein
and Ziggy Marley with his
off-color humor, and will
hit the stage Friday and
Saturday at 8 and 10:30
p.m. Tickets are $10.
et's admire a wall for
a moment. It's made
of red brick, and it's
about 18 feet tall. It
runs about a quarter
of a city block, around 88 feet. It
keeps a building up, and it keeps
the rain out.
In short, it's a good wall.
But it's boring and, let's face it,
pretty unsightly. According to a
graffiti artist, though, it's about
1,584 square feet of unused can-
vas.
"I just have this desire to put
graffiti on banks, and I don't know
why," said an LSA sophomore
and graffiti artist who agreed to
be identified only by her initials,
S.H.R, because her work is illegal.
"I think it's mostly because they
have these big blank walls outside
of them. Most of the buildings
are pretty ugly as they are, so I
wouldn't care about putting paint
on them," she said.
And even though the artists view
these paintings as art, graffiti car-
ries different connotations and con-
jures stereotypical images of kids
with spray paint covering street
signs with drunken, low-brow
homages to sweethearts. But, while
some graffiti may be treated as
such, it's much more than juvenilia.
There's a whole culture of crafts-
manship beneath layers of aerosol
paint, an entire art form that needs
to be unearthed with a discerning
eye.
Take, for instance, some ama-
teur graffiti that's begun to appear
around campus - it's one word,
written in an untrained hand:
"FRESH." Where do we draw the
line between graffiti as vandal-
ism and graffiti as art? Arguably,
nowhere. "I get annoyed with bad
graffiti. What are you proving,
other than the fact that you have a
lot of spray paint?" S.H.R. said.
There is a point to most graffiti.
The pieces often have a certain rel-
evance to the artists themselves,
and graffiti for art's sake is rare-
ly done for the sole purposes of
annoying property owners. The
pieces intend to make a statement.
"One of the (graffiti pieces) I
did was of a child who has an 'M'
print on his back, and it reads, 'UM
Apparel Is Made in Sweatshops,' "
S.H.R. said, referring to a piece of
graffiti found near East Quad resi-
dence hall. "There was a protest
last year against sweatshops, and I
just wanted to put something out to
support them, because there wasn't
a ton of publicity for that."
She was referring to sit in held
by Students Organizing for Labor
and Economic Equality in April.
Twelve students were arrested
after they refused to leave Univer-
sity President Mary Sue Coleman's
office. They wanted the University
to sign on to the Designated Suppli-
ers Program, which would require
the University to only license its
apparel to companies that adhere
to the program's labor standards."I
originally wanted to put (the graffiti
piece) near the Fleming building so
that Mary Sue Coleman would have
to walk by it every day and see it, but
I never got to finish the one I putover
there, and it just got defaced, unfor-
tunately,"S.H.R.said.
The meaning and culture
behind this urban art form has
spread widely beyond the "local
kids fooling around" connotation,
becoming a national phenomenon.
Websites such as Streetsycom seek
to unite graffiti as a cultural art
form, linking the street art created
in big cities like New York, Tokyo,
Reykjavik and Tel Aviv.
"Graffiti is used for all sorts
of purposes and for all sorts of
causes," said Jake Dobkin, the
website's founder, about the use of
graffiti in politically-charged cit-
ies. "Take (the conflict in Israel) -
there's plentyofanti-Israeligraffiti
on the Palestinian side of the sepa-
ration wall. But there's also plenty
of pro-Israel stuff on the other side
of the wall, and in Tel Aviv and
Jerusalem," he said. "Both sides
use graf(fiti) because it's an easy
way of getting attention."
It's also an easy way of portray-
ing personal or cultural views to a
big audience: the public.
Graffiti is a transient art. What
may be on a wall today mightnot be
there tomorrow. Graffiti Archae-
ology, a project dedicated to the
study of graffiti, treats graffiti as
an artifact preserved through pic-
tures that the site's founder, Cas-
sidy Curtis, assembles in a timeline
format.
See GRAFFITI, Page 3B
ON SCREEN
"China Blue," a revealing
film about globalization
and the sweatshop indus-
try, displays the life of a
teenage Chinese blue-
jean factory worker, who
earns less than $1 per day
and must live in a crowded
dormitory. The free public
screening is 6 p.m. tonight
in the Vandenberg Room
in the Michigan Union.
'.TI
PHOTOS COURTESY OF PARAMOUNT VANTAGE, WORKING TITLE, GHOULARDI, PIXAR, GOOC
TIME CHARLIE PRODUCTIONS, FOX SEARCHLIGHT, SAMUELS MEDIA, LIVE PLANET AND UNIVERSAL
sca r's favorites
Daily Arts
predicts
who will and
should win
at this year's
Osca rs
BEST ACTOR IN A LEADING
ROLE
George Clooney, "Michael Clayton"
Daniel Day-Lewis, "There Will Be
Blood"
Johnny Depp, "Sweeney Todd: The
Demon Barber of Fleet Street"
Tommy Lee Jones, "In the Valley of
Elah"
Viggo Mortenson, "Eastern Prom-
ises"
Should Win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis
Daniel Day-Lewis is a sure thing
thisyear. The"ThereWillBeBlood"
lead actor has swept all the major
critics awards, and he rightfully
deserves his statuette for creating
the most original movie character
of the year in the narcissistic oil-
man Daniel Plainview. Then again,
Clooney's performance as a corpo-
rate "fixer" in "Michael Clayton" is
being called the best of his career,
and Mortenson's bare-all mobster
in "Eastern Promises" certainly has
its admirers. But no matter, since
Day-Lewis will surely drink the
competition up.
ANDREWLAPIN
BEST ACTRESS IN A LEADING
ROLE
Ellen Page: "Juno"
Marion Cotillard: "La Vie en Rose"
Julie Christie: "Away From Her"
Cate Blanchett: "Elizabeth: The
Golden Age"
Laura Linney: "The Savages"
Should Win: Ellen Page
Will Win: Julie Christie
This year's crop of nominees
is undeniably talented, and in a
weaker year, any of these perfor-
mances would be an easy front-
runner. This year's battle comes
down to a star on the rise and
someone everyone considered
past her prime. Julie Christie will
undoubtedly walk away with the
statue on Oscar night, especially
because the Academy loves to
reward former movie stars coming
out of semi-retirement. But (scoff
if you want) Ellen Page gave the
most real, luminous and star-mak-
ing turn of the bunch. Thankfully,
she has many years ahead of her to
earn another nomination and per-
haps a win.
SHERIJANKELOVITZ
See OSCARS, Page 4B
ON THE ICE
If you're not traveling to
the tropics this week-
end, celebrate the wintry
weather Saturday with
Buhrrr Fest, an event load-
ed with seasonal goodies
like ice skating, a s'mores
bonfire and broomball.
The event starts at 2:30
p.m. at Buhr Park Ice Rink.
Tickets are $6.
Of