Commodifying Street Art in Detroit: Permissive Location and Rhetorical Messages

RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit

Commodifying Street Art in Detroit: Permissive Location andRhetorical Messages

Craig Hennigan

Wayne State University

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ABSTRACT: Street art is a visual rhetorical tool that produces a

discourse in opposition to elites and dominant classes. In the

city of Detroit, there has been economic devastation, but an

influx of artists into low cost housing available throughout the

city. Do-it-yourself culture (DIY) is growing due to local

government cutbacks and the culture of the people entering the

city to live and work. One expression of DIY is through the

creation of public art. Public art projects are becoming

commonplace in Detroit, some with the permission of owners of

property and others without. This paper aims to survey three

public art projects in Detroit through the lens of Horkheimer and

Adorno’s culture industry to see how DIY and public art with

permission can serve to co-opt the rhetorical messages behind

street art. The DIY nature of new public art projects serve

neoliberal interests providing free labor and enhancement to the

community for the benefit of property owners.

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Detroit is a city that has been devastated by the

postindustrial economy. Shifting capital to the outside of the

city, white flight, and race riots in 1943 as well as 1967 were

underlying reasons that massive population declines that

continued throughout the 20th and into the 21st century (Sugrue,

2005). It features large hulking masses of abandoned buildings

and factories that have sat in disrepair for decades. As early

as the 1970’s, Detroit had become a metonym for economic

hopelessness and urban decay. It is also known though, as “Paris

of the Midwest.”

Why Detroit? – Reviewing gentrification literature

“Paris of the Midwest” is mentioned because underneath the

unpleasant destruction of a city that has been looted, there has

been a resurgence of art. Detroit has long been noted for its

classical architecture and its rich musical history. Now though,

with the lowered values of prime properties, artists are finding

it much easier to find a home inside the city limits.

Photographers, video producers, and designers have moved

into Detroit in droves. They redefine neighborhoods that have

been forgotten and beautify spaces that previously were unused.

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The reception is mixed. While people welcome new population into

the city, Neil Smith explains in, The New Urban Frontier: Gentrification

and the Revanchist City that in cities such as Chicago and New York’s

East English Village that artists moving into a poor area is the

first step toward gentrifying a community. Some of the

neighborhoods within Detroit being inhabited by this creative

class are experiencing changes in the cultural dynamic that was

there previously.

Smith’s earlier theory of gentrification is considered a

supply-side analysis, but the revanchist city describes a culture

of reconquering an inner city from marginalized ethnic groups

(Makagon, 2010). It would suggest that the reasons that artists

enter into blighted and low rent areas are due economic

opportunity for low capital investment, but also that there is an

act of (re)taking involved that is more complex than a

reductionist answer through political economy.

Another explanation of the occurrences of gentrification

would be the culture and consumption theory, popularized by David

Ley (Ley, 2003). Ley suggests that gentrification is more than

just a supply phenomenon. Artists and the art industry becomes a

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facilitator of gentrification based on historically desirable

places for that industry to thrive. Because discourses in media

and within the industry portray the artist as living in urban

areas, they tend to want to migrate there. The art world becomes

facilitators for other members of the dominant class to move in

to gentrify an area based on the inference that those in the art

industry are purveyors of culture (Ley, 2003).

There is also research into how discourses can fight

gentrification of an area that would overpower the forces of

cultural consumption or political economy. Wilson, Wouters and

Grammanos (2004) examine how a city resisted gentrifying moves

through their communication as an organization. Their work is

based in the working class neighborhood of Pilson, a small

section of Chicago. The rhetorical constructions of Pilson were

through representation of spaces as well as partially the use of

art murals in those spaces to portray a need to protect Pilson.

The confrontational nature of the discourse provided by the

Protect Pilson organization made developers fear possible violent

risk in gentrifying the neighborhood. However, none of the art

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mentioned in this is street art with its countercultural

messages.

The story of Detroit is somewhat different, however. The

massive population losses ensure that property values and rent

prices are not going to increase quickly. Population increases

in the city have been relegated to three neighborhoods, Midtown

(formerly known as Cass Corridor), Downtown, and Corktown.

Because of this there is still adequate housing with low rent in

a large portion of the city. The effects of gentrification are

debated in regard to the aforementioned neighborhoods, and even

then there is a strong argument that a middle class moving into

what was typically a middle class neighborhood may not be

considered gentrification (Norquist, 2005; Wheeler, 2011).

DIY in Detroit

Another trait that has arose in Detroit in recent years, is

the idea of do-it-yourself, or DIY culture (Dawkins, 2011;

“Detroit – Decayed Buildings & DIY Paradise,” 2011, “Detroit: Do-

It-Yourself City,” 2011; Fischer, 2012). DIY has become so

ingrained in the Detroit psyche that citizens even perform their

own city services: mowing lawns on public land, improving vacant

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buildings, paying for private policing and snow removal all are

parts of the lifestyle for some Detroiters (“Detroit: Do-It-

Yourself City,” 2011).

DIY culture was popularized in the punk rock scene of the

late early 1980’s (Dunn, 2008) and is characterized by a longing

for what is called by Amy Spencer as the “rise of lo-fi culture,”

(Spencer, 2005). While Spencer says the idea of the DIY zine, or

low production magazine, was through a desire to create a new

cultural form, she also notes it as a reflection of how

mainstream media refused to tell the stories of countercultural

revolutions in a way that would threaten itself. Kevin Dunn

(2008) expresses how the DIY ethos in punk rock was a way that

the artists could achieve agency and empowerment in the cultural

field. The DIY culture has been studied also as a way that

academics become activists in their chosen fields (Halfacree,

2004). The DIY spirit evolved from a culture where the system

only left the option of DIY as a means to send out messages that

dominant discourses conflict with. This DIY spirit also

translates to street art as will be discussed later.

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Detroit is a unique city to research because urban decay is

most dramatically exemplified there. The same traits, however,

have been happening in former industrial “rust belt” cities

across the United States. It has been suggested by many that

what happens in Detroit may be predictive of what will happen in

many other urban areas dealing with the same social problems.

Additionally, the increased use of permissive spaces to feature

art and artists is also unique to Detroit. These spaces for

public art and street artists are attempts to both improve

surrounding neighborhoods and gain exposure for the artist.

While previous research into gentrification has examined how the

art and artists affect a community, there is a research gap in

studying how community spaces can change the nature of the street

art.

Graffiti and street art

Street art itself can be a rather slippery term to define.

It is amorphous in nature, but a few characteristics constitute

what street art is. Street art is inspired by urban settings; it

typically has an anti-capitalist or anti-establishment bent to

its themes; and it can be placed on a public space with or

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without permission (“What is Street Art? Vandalism, graffiti or

public art- Part I,” 2010). The permissive aspect is a

distinguishing characteristic in the eyes of the law between

street art, and graffiti vandalism, although most in the art

community still regard graffiti as a form of street art. Many

well-known street artists display their work on public spaces

without permission.

The idea of street art is often a rebellion to the present

state of affairs. World renowned street artist Banksy is known

for creating critiques of capitalism around the world in public

spaces (Notaro, 2010). Because the act of graffiti is illegal,

it can be a subversive act. Banksy is only an example of the

expression of graffiti as a counterhegemonic discourse. As far

away as Lebanon and as far back as ancient times graffiti has

been known as a political and counterhegemonic form of discourse

(Baird & Taylor, 2011; Seigneurie, 2009). Street art is a

discourse that is rebellious in the very act and its messages

often serve as a rebellion against dominant paradigms as well.

Daniel Makagon (Makagon, 2000) examines further the idea of

street art being a disruptive rhetorical form that preserves its

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legitimacy through the act of illegality in its creation. While

other art becomes commodified, street art is not to be bought and

sold. Because the art comes without financial support and is

produced only by the artists themselves, Makagon makes the link

between street art and the DIY culture.

Street art is DIY, and may not be bought and sold, but there

are still attempts to commodify it. Advertisers look to street

art to find new forms of creatively getting out messages to large

amounts of people in order to sell products. Admittedly, the

overlapping of the actual rhetorical messages of street art and

that of advertising is quite low. Advertisers instead look to

the style while omitting the meaning in order to attempt to use

it to sell products (Borghini, Visconti, Anderson, & Sherry,

2010).

In Detroit, there is a push for the promotion of art in

public projects. Because of the lack of value in open

storefronts, abandoned or repurposed buildings, and other ilable

mediums, there are many open canvasses for artists in the city.

One twist that has happened in Detroit though, is the massive use

of approved places to put artistic work. How does the culture

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industry interact with street art in Detroit? How does the use

of a legal venue to place art change the discourse of said

artwork? What sorts of characteristics of the system are

reflected in street art in Detroit? How do DIY attitudes that

are so prevalent in a city such as Detroit affect the process of

counterhegemonic discourse?

Method

The use of graffiti as a political statement is commonplace

in other nations, but less prevalent in the United States

(Phillips, 1999). The origins of tagging in the US though did

serve a purpose on a micropolitical level. The writing on the

walls, subway cars, and anything else a graffiti artist could get

their paint on expressed a discourse of political rebellion to

the use of urban spaces in the city (Greenberg, 2008). The rise

of hip hop graffiti in the 1970s marked a visibility of urban

settings and brought life to dilapidated buildings and unkept

parks (Greenberg, 2008).

Graffiti writers create messages by those on the margins of

society. A benefit can be found in being able to use a language

only available to the margins. The mainstream is unable to

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understand the messages and thus the margins open a new space for

theorization that holds a power the mainstream cannot access

(Hariman, 1986). Graffiti taps into the power of the margins and

the origins of writing on subway cars and anywhere else that can

be done in visible places puts the messages of those often shut

out of society into the forefront. Subway cars in New York go

through all of the boroughs, so the writing is seen by all; rich

and poor, people of color and whites, men and women. Graffiti is

also a perfect example of utilizing a code that often is only

understood by marginalized groups, such as gangs (Phillips,

1999). Eventually though if communication is effective at the

margins it becomes mainstream and the process of creating new

out-groups begins anew (Hariman, 1986). It the artistic world,

this can be performed through mechanisms of capitalism and the

culture industry.

Horkheimer and Adorno (Adorno & Horkheimer, 1982) discuss

how the culture industry gives people only the culture that the

industry sees fit to produce. The industry does so under the

false reasoning that in order to give the public what they want

culture has to be mass produced and diluted into easily

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digestible chunks for consumption. The production of culture

becomes an experience to uphold the dominant paradigms rather

than giving a critical analysis. Art becomes predictable,

rehashed pieces that tell the same tired clichés in different

technological mediums. Style becomes the end in itself in art,

and as doing so it becomes a servant to the social hierarchy.

The adherence to style is a way that the culture industry turns

culture into commodity. Style becomes dictated by the amount of

surplus value that elites can produce from a particular genre.

The agency of the artist becomes lost to the profit motive.

While earlier art and culture was there to upend the system, the

capture of the culture industry by capitalistic mass production

and enterprise co-opts culture into serving its interests. They

discuss the endpoint of where style turns culture into an

entrenchment of the social order:

In the culture industry this imitation finally becomes absolute. Having ceased to be anything but style, it revealsthe latter’s secret: obedience to the social hierarchy. Today aesthetic barbarity completes what has threatened the creations of the spirit since they were gathered together asculture and neutralized. To speak of culture was always contrary to culture. Culture as a common denominator alreadycontains in embryo that schematization and process of cataloging and classification which bring culture within the

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sphere of administration. And it is precisely the industrialized, the consequent, subsumption which entirely accords with this notion of culture. By subordinating in thesame way and to the same end all areas of intellectual creation, by occupying men’s senses from the time they leavethe factory in the evening to the time they clock in again the next morning with matter that bears the impress of the labor process they themselves have to sustain throughout theday, this subsumption mockingly satisfies the concept of a unified culture which the philosophers of personality contrasted with mass culture.

Culture becomes nothing but style, and the subversive act of

art and culture is lost with the co-opting of the industry

through capital. Culture gets subsumed into the system and

becomes simply a part of a greater capitalistic whole rather than

a subversive act in itself. No longer would culture point out

contradictions and illustrate the suffering of the system rather

the adherence to the style of sending a message becomes more

important than the message itself.

Horkheimer and Adorno state that with the rise of the

culture industry “there is the agreement—or at least the

determination—of all executive authorities not to produce or

sanction anything that in any way differs from their own rules,

their own ideas about consumers, or above all themselves,” (p.

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2). This is to suggest that as culture becomes commodified under

capitalism, only certain rhetorical messages will be allowed by

those that control the industry. We can see this occur in

certain areas of public art projects in Detroit.

Texts and analysis

The analysis begins by examining the rhetorical text of

three public art projects either completed or being produced in

Detroit. First is the recently created “Woodward Windows” (see

figures 2 and 3). The project is a joint venture between 323

Art Gallery and The Farbman Group, a commercial real estate

company that owns the building where the windows reside. The

project is not a public art project in the sense that it is

publicly funded, and none of the examples in this paper uses the

term public in the state funded context. There are certainly

political and individual motivations behind the project, as one

of its producing artist, Mike Han aka Ikon, says in an interview

that the project is a wonderful opportunity for individual

artists to show their work as it is on the biggest stage in

Detroit (“Artists spruce up windows on vacant buildings in

Downtown Detroit,” 2011).

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The Woodward Windows has actually served as a launching pad

for artists to display their work. The 323 Gallery had sent an

artist later to New York City to paint a “graffiti mural” as the

finishing touch on a $13 million dollar townhouse. The event was

captured by Home and Garden Television to be placed in a show

they produced (Pace, 2011). There is little doubt that the

commodification of street art was facilitated by the permissive

nature of the Woodward Windows.

The art at the Woodward Windows serves to reinforce the

social strata that present capitalistic society enforces. The

permissive use of space is conditioned by the ownership of that

space. In this case, the Farbman Group in their partnership has

ownership of the building housing the art. The art then is

predicated by that ownership. The result is art that

stylistically resembles the art of the street, without any of the

countercultural messages it typically produces. The act creating

non-permissive art is rhetorical. This act becomes co-opted when

art is mass produced in permissive areas in order to bring it to

the public in an accessible manner. The Woodward Windows are a

large stage in Detroit, the location allows hundreds of people to

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be exposed per day to the cultural message that the art produces.

The message though, is that through the beautification of the

empty storefronts of the city there can be a resurgence of

businesses to come back downtown. One of the main artists for

the 323 Gallery even stated that as the purpose of the project in

a television interview (Han, 2011; “Woodward Windows Public Art

in Detroit” n.d.). There is a vested interest on the part of the

artist in increasing the value of the surrounding areas of the

city. The purpose is no longer that of subverting a discourse of

capital or authoritarianism, rather it is to reinforce them.

This idea that art can be a way to help repopulate empty

storefronts with business is stated in the aforementioned

interview. The cultural message is now the message of the

dominant structure.

Another way that the Woodward Windows diverges from other

street art is the permanence, or at the very least the settled

amount of time that the Windows will hold the art. One of the

characteristics of non-permissive street art is that it is

temporary. Either authorities will remove an unauthorized piece,

or other street artists will eventually paint over the previous

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work. This continues the conversation in the community and keeps

the conversation renewable. In the case of the Woodward Windows

there is structure in the amount of time each art piece is

featured, and there are decisions made as to when and who will be

painting a particular space next. The uncertainty surrounding

the medium is lost.

This idea fits in well with what Horkheimer and Adorno

(1982) were addressing with the controlling of the agency of the

artists and how those that run the culture industry only are

allowed certain messages to be told. There is very little chance

that The Farbman Group would have allowed a pictorial treatise on

how the real estate industry was integral to the most recent

crash in the world economy. On the contrary, an artist with such

a message would not have been allowed to gain the exposure that

the location provided. Without the permission of the owners,

however, there is carte blanche with the artists’ possible

messages.

The use of the permissive space also undermines the culture

of DIY. The street artists no longer are doing it themselves;

they are performing with the assistance of members of the

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dominant class, and under their supervision. The idea of DIY may

still have elements of doing it yourself, but the idea of doing

it for yourself has been lost to the corporate elites and the hope

of attracting bourgeois entrepreneurs into the city.

Also noteworthy is that while the political message is

subsumed, the style of the art is preserved. The fashionable

dragon is painted on the windows using the jagged lines and

bright colors of the typical street artist, but there is no

message anymore to the community. No conversation is started,

other than the bold signature underneath the picture. This

signature sends the message that perhaps this artist could be

found for hire on the next luxury townhouse being built in an

affluent city. The promise of future pay for the labor of the

artist is the motivation behind doing work on the Woodward

Windows, rather than supplying a counter to elite discourses.

The second project worthy of examination is a non-permissive

unknown street artist who has been creating campaign poster style

paintings of former Detroit Mayor Hazen Pingree (see figures 3

and 4). This project is performed in non-permissive venues as

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well as occasional permissive ones. Mediums vary from actual

campaign posters to painted walls to look like campaign posters.

It is important to note the historical element to Hazen

Pingree himself. He was Detroit’s last socialist mayor from

1889-1896 as well as governor of Michigan. His policies included

creating municipal competitors to private utility monopolies to

protect the working class. He also increased public welfare

programs. Inscribed under a monument to the man are the words

“The citizens of Michigan erect this monument to the cherished

memory of Hazen S. Pingree, a gallant soldier and enterprising

and successful citizen, four times elected mayor of Detroit,

twice governor of Michigan. He was the first to warn the people

of the great danger threatened by powerful private corporations

and the first to initiate steps for reforms. The idol of the

people,” (Moore, Stocking, & Miller, 1922). One of his plans for

the use of city space was called the “potato patch plan.” It was

an attempt to create city gardens with vacant city land as well

as city parks. The food produced by the potato patches would be

used to help the city’s poor and marginalized.

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Today, the campaign posters could serve as a

counterdiscourse to capitalistic structures. However, urban

gardeners have taken the message of “potato patch Pingree” and

used it as a mantra for DIY urban gardens in Detroit. This

notion of DIY is that because of the failures of the state and

the capitalist system, there is no other option for the people

other than creating their own services and laboring for the

benefit of the city. This labor is unpaid. The eruption of

community gardens in Detroit has been used more as an influence

to bring value to places where there was little beforehand. The

value of these properties though, serves the owners of the

properties more than the workers that actually toil to grow food

in these DIY gardens. The DIY trend has been utilized by elites

in the area to find a source of free labor that will bring

surplus value to the properties that surround them. Rather than

serving the socialistic roots of Hazen Pingree, the rhetorical

message becomes short, cliché, and predictable just as Horkheimer

and Adorno would have predicted.

Instead of the possibility of beginning a conversation about

the policies of Hazen Pingree as opposed to neoliberal policies

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of today, the message is now the pre-packaged one in support of

community gardening. This paints the city in a positive light,

enacting a community spirit through DIY innovations. David

Harvey (2001) expresses how a community spirit can allow people

from a particular geography to feel good about their situation.

This may sound like something inherently valuable, but what

happens is that is stops any propensity of a revolutionary

rhetoric from taking place. In this case, the interests of

capital have subsumed the interests of upending an unfair system.

The campaign posters sit in a style of street art, but start a

false conversation.

Lastly, a new project is in the works currently that is

called the Lincoln Street Sculpture Garden (see figure 5). This

is a work in progress. The funding for the project comes

primarily from a Kickstarter campaign. The Kickstarter campaign

exemplifies DIY in Detroit, and has funded many public projects

through the generosity of others. Labor to clean up the space

was performed through volunteer actions and more unpaid labor.

The location is that of the Recycle Here! company. Recycle

Here! is a private entity funded by the Greater Detroit Resource

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Recovery Authority to provide recycling services to city

residents. Sites on the location include walls that will be

dedicated to local art students in order for them to showcase

painting skills. Other sculptured art is in a grassy area that

guests will be encouraged to walk through, and more appropriated

street art is behind the building.

While the issues of permissive location and unpaid labor are

still evident in this project, there are a couple of anomolies at

the Lincoln Street Sculpture Garden. First is that the recycling

services are funded through a public grant (“Recycle Here! |

Detroit,” n.d.). This grant could serve as a way to dilute

cultural messages that could be sent by the artwork. Much like

Horkheimer and Adorno suggest that the culture industry dictates

the taste from the top of the industry, in this case those that

supply the grant have the choice to decide what ‘acceptable’

tastes would be. This is unlike the case they referenced in

Germany, where the public funding of the arts were protected by

the state. In this case, it is quite the opposite. The

government is no longer a protector of art and culture, rather

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they are partners in the pursuit of capital trumping taste and

originality.

Additionally, the use of college art students and most of

the known artists supply what Horkheimer and Adorno would call a

“bourgeois art, bought with the exclusion of the lower classes,”

(p. 8). Art’s autonomy is lost to the culture industry leaders

of the school. The potential of an unfinished project such as

the sculpture garden does exist, however, and the artwork

produced despite the venue will have to be re-evaluated upon the

completion of the project.

Using these students, mowing and landscaping unkept land,

and building the area on the part of Recycle Here! and the

artists is creating surplus value not just for Recycle Here!, but

also the surrounding properties. The use of DIY is no longer a

way to question the contradictions of pursuing surplus value as

it had been in other forms of street art, self-published zines,

and punk rock. Instead it is a way to create surplus value and

exploit labor in the interest of cultural gain. Ironically, the

culture is also co-opted as well thus gaining very little other

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than a non-political aesthetic only revealing style with a

rhetorical message that only upholds the dominating classes.

Post-Approval Events

After the approval of this paper for conference, two very

notable and large street art projects were “commissioned” in

Detroit and the city of Hamtramck which is surrounded by the city

limits of Detroit. These projects exemplify how graffiti has

been co-opted by renaming the genre to street art. This renaming

places the genre in a place that is approved by dominant power

structures while unapproved graffiti art remains illegal. The

rhetorical intent of graffiti is undermined

The city of Hamtramck commissioned pieces of street art in

order to beautify its neighborhoods. One of the more

controversial pieces was created by an artist named Sever (Figure

6). Entitled the “Death of Street Art” the picture depicts world

renowned street artists Twist, Os Gemeos, Shepard Fairey, Banksy,

Futura, and Kaws carrying a casket labeled “Street Art” (Fischer,

2012). This work is a powerful rhetorical piece on what the

permissive spaces and commissioning of street art is doing to the

underlying meaning of the nature of art. No longer is the

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meaning of street art serving to affix its own brand of renewal

to urban spaces through counterhegemonic messages of the margins;

rather the art is now sought after by those in positions of

governmental power in order to revitalize spaces.

This particular piece caused controversy in the city of

Hamtramck as members of the city council believed that the casket

symbolized the death of the city rather than street art, even

though the casket is quite clearly labeled. What occurred after

that, however, was a playful countermessage that encapsulates

what the original meanings of graffiti were there for (Figure 7).

A graffiti artist painted the words, “This is not my city!”

alongside the mural that Sever created, and even more ironically,

someone had washed the word “my” from the wall leaving the

message “This is my city!” (Jackman, 2012). The response in a

local paper was striking, leaving a distinction between graffiti

and street art that serves to further marginalize the potential

political messages of graffiti.

According to local sources, the building at Goodson Street and Joseph Campau was defaced at night after the bars closedsometime this weekend. The message, “This is my city,” though perhaps intended to be a reply to Sever’s work, is a classic example of graffiti.

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How do we know this is graffiti and not street art? First ofall, this is illegal. It is unsigned. The person who tagged this wall did it under cover of night, unlike the street artists who work cheerfully by day; you can bet your boots the tagger didn’t receive permission to do this. It’s ugly. It will certainly affect the property values of the building. And, finally, unlike the imaginative street art we’ve seen, this graffiti is obviously used by a local to mark territory.

We don’t approve of illegal graffiti, but we couldn’t help but take this opportunity to show the differences between the two, which are especially conspicuous when you see them side-by-side. We can only hope that the vandal is caught andforced to pay for sandblasting off this tag (Jackman 2012 para. 5-7).

The editorial in this case shows how street art is a

commodified term portrayed as a social good while graffiti is

representative of social ills. In one respect, there is truth in

the idea that graffiti is a response to social ills; but in this

case Michael Jackman (2012) makes it quite clear that should the

writing damage property values then it becomes ugly in its form.

However, when there is approval and permission and a signature

depicting ownership of an art piece then it is “imaginative.”

Another large art project recently undertaken is the Grand

River Creative Corridor (GRCC). This project spans about a mile

and a half along Grand River Avenue in Detroit and was begun by

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Derek Weaver, manager of Detroit art incubator 4731 (Sorge,

2012). When the zip code of Weaver (and the author,

coincidentally) was described as the most depressing in the US,

he began the project as a way to revitalize the neighborhood. He

began by commissioning three pieces of art by street artist

Sintex and continued by asking permission of building owners if

they would allow their walls to be used for expansion of art.

World renowned street artists were flown into Detroit to

donate their talent upon the walls of Grand River Avenue along

with local artists from the previously mentioned College of

Creative Studies. Many businesses welcomed the art for two

reasons, to revitalize the area in order to make it welcoming to

potential customers, and for free advertising that artists

provided for many storefronts. Fastener manufacturer American

Integrated Supply had the façade of their building remade in

order to quite literally advertise their business (Figure 8).

The cartoonish figures bring the street art full circle. Where

countercultural messages once were the norm of street artists

creating works under cover of night in order to not get caught;

now the childish figures are painted onto buildings in broad

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daylight with a family-friendly feel in order to please the

owners of businesses. Very little of the art in the GRCC was

actually paid for, as the artists were donating their time and

talent for the opportunity to create large murals in the city.

Many donations came in from local businesses, but nothing from

the local government was brought in to help revitalize this area.

This is a true DIY revitalization project but it is for the

benefit of those immersed in the culture industry with a well-

known name or in a bourgeois art school.

Lastly, a coup de grace for traditional street art was given

very recently. The Facebook page for the GRCC shows a wall

across the street from the 4731 gallery entitled “Our Gallery.”

Two graffiti artists tagged the wall, perhaps thinking that it

was open space to be used, or possibly sending an ironic message

that the walls are the galleries of the taggers. The response

from the GRCC was telling: “Note to this graffiti artist: please

don't vandalize our sister building, ‘Our Gallery’, on Grand

River. We like graffiti art not vandalism! Call us and we'll let

u do it right... Thanks :)” (“Grand River Creative Corridor-

Detroit,” 2012). No longer are the street taggers artists,

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rather they are now vandals in the eyes of those that are

attempting to support graffiti art. These artists have to go

through the culture industry’s bureaucratic mechanisms now in

order to gain acceptance into the mainstream that street art has

now become.

Answering research questions

How does the culture industry interact with street art in

Detroit? It creates spaces to attempt to bring back surplus

value to properties that have been devastated by the effects of

late capitalism to the urban rust belt cities. The culture

industry uses art as a commodity in order to purchase legitimacy

in the community. The art becomes less of a countercultural

message, and more of a banal aesthetic devoted to a style.

How does the use of a legal venue to place art change the

discourse of said artwork? The permissive venue destroys the

original discourse of what street art was intended to be. The

temporality of street art becomes permanence, and ends the

conversation with other artists and patrons. Street art has an

intention of starting a dialogue, but in a venue where the style

is revered it only results in a monologic view of the world.

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What sorts of characteristics capitalism are reflected in

street art in Detroit? The constant search for cheaper to unpaid

labor is exemplified in how artists, and the builder of art

spaces, become used by the system. This is directly how DIY

attitudes affect the process of counterhegemonic discourse in

Detroit. If there is a public good with no surplus value to a

project, people have to do it themselves, rather than utilize the

commons for common good. DIY culture in the city, much like the

street art being made is co-opted by the system. DIY becomes a

commodity representing free labor and work ethic to produce

surplus value chasing an artistic style rather than art with a

counterhegemonic message.

Limitations and future directions

There is a limitation in this work as there is difficulty in

contacting street artists who perform in non-permissive venues.

Even when approaching such an artist, the publication surrounding

their work can place that artist in danger of discovery and

possible criminal prosecution. Interviews may be helpful in

understanding more behind the work of the street artist, although

it is conceivable that the method for this type of rhetorical

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work does not demand communication with the rhetor. If we are

focusing on rhetorical effect, then the intention of the rhetor

becomes moot.

A possibility for continued research would be to approach

this issue from an interdisciplinary perspective. The help of

art scholars or urban studies scholars may be able to enhance the

explanation behind the capture of street art under the culture

industry. Progressing an evolution or categorization of how art

can be co-opted from Horkheimer and Adorno’s time to today would

be a good start. Remembering Horkheimer and Adorno essentially

shunned all future cultural forms as being a part of a culture

industry it would be of value to still critique the politics

behind art even though it may not fit Horkheimer and Adorno’s

particular tastes. In this work, I do not critique the art

itself, so much as critique how capital and the culture industry

has an effect on art.

Another possible direction that would be valuable to the

field is instead of discussing the discourse of the street art,

to examine the discourses surrounding said art that created the

conditions for it to arise. Particularly in a city such as

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Detroit, where the failures of the main industries have

culminated in a modern day ruin, it would be worthwhile to

examine those discourses.

Lastly, this paper does not examine the modern day ruin.

For more on the photographing of what has been called “Ruin

Pornography” consult “Detroitism” (2011) by John Patrick Leary

who examines the meaning of photographing abandoned buildings in

Detroit. In the case of this research though the building does

not become art until it is photographed, and thus less relevant

to what is asked.

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Figure 1 – Anti-consumerist art by Banksy (“2010 May 12

« Echostains Blog,” 2010)

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Figure 1 – A display at the Woodward Windows (“Woodward Windows

Public Art in Detroit | A public art project by SCM Studios and

323 East,” n.d.)

Figure 2 – A display with artist signage at the Woodward Windows

(“Woodward Windows Public Art in Detroit | A public art project

by SCM Studios and 323 East,” n.d.)

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Figure 3 and 4 above – Hazen Pingree street art (“Hazen S.

Pingree,” 2009, “Hazen S. Pingree,” 2011)

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Figure 5 – Artistic display at Lincoln Street Sculpture Garden

(“Lincoln St. Sculpture Garden,” 2011)

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Figure 6 – Sever “Death of Street Art” (Jackman, 2012).

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Figure 7 – “Death of Street Art” with graffiti response (Jackman,

2012).

Figure 8 – American Integrated Supply (heyitsbela, 2012).

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Figure 9 – Facebook page of Grand River Creative Corridor (“Grand

River Creative Corridor-Detroit,” 2012).

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Commodifying Street Art in Detroit: Permissive Location and Rhetorical Messages

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