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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
Figure 1 – Anti-consumerist art by Banksy (“2010 May 12
« Echostains Blog,” 2010)
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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
Figure 3 and 4 above – Hazen Pingree street art (“Hazen S.
Pingree,” 2009, “Hazen S. Pingree,” 2011)
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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
Figure 5 – Artistic display at Lincoln Street Sculpture Garden
(“Lincoln St. Sculpture Garden,” 2011)
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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
Figure 6 – Sever “Death of Street Art” (Jackman, 2012).
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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
Figure 7 – “Death of Street Art” with graffiti response (Jackman,
2012).
Figure 8 – American Integrated Supply (heyitsbela, 2012).
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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
Figure 9 – Facebook page of Grand River Creative Corridor (“Grand
River Creative Corridor-Detroit,” 2012).
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RUNNING HEAD: Commodifying Street Art in Detroit
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