Vandalism, enemy to works of art, can at times engender or create art, even so. – Immemorial as they seem, some varieties of human action nonetheless do have a history, are able to be dated or defined, and “vandalism” represents one of them. Like much else that still concerns everyone today, for better and/or for worse, this -ism too comes from the French Revolution; some clarity may be found by calling to mind its first, more precise meaning, as the practice itself has ramified widely.
After the overthrow of the monarch, towards summer’s end in 1792, weeks passed before the Convention nationale, newly elected, decided on the monarchy’s abolition and proclaimed the République une et indivisible (a separate day taken for each of the three acts, September 20, 21, 22): during the interval, many symbols of the Ancien Régime falling to the people’s anger, the Assemblée législative sought to channel it in some productive manner, and decreed the melting-down for cannon of the old monuments (August 14), put thus despite themselves to use in the nation’s defence. And soon the Comité de salut public authorised the destruction of the royal tombs. Very quickly, however, it became evident that the nation’s patrimony, the libraries and other repositories included, was being not only ravaged, but also blatantly stolen, amassed scandalously in private hands; so, as the end of An ii neared, one member, the author Henri Grégoire, was tasked with the preparation of a report, which he delivered in the session of 14 Fructidor (August 31, 1794). What was the title of his work? Sur les destructions opérées par le Vandalisme, et sur les moyens de le réprimer.
Certainly he was not the first amongst the hommes de lettres of those generations to have reflected at length upon the Vandals, as an eminently warlike tribe invited or allowed to enter the territories of the Roman Empire in the long period of its decline, who, after arriving, by turns delayed and hastened the collapse, and whose contribution to what there remained of civilisation afterwards would evince a similar ambiguity. (Moreover, pointed researches into the history of the Franks and those said to be their descendants, namely, the French nobility, formed a well-known genre of historiography which had abetted the great discontent that took shape in the Revolution.) But Grégoire it was who compressed those trains of thought into an evocative and multifarious -ism as unavoidable today as it was at the moment of its coinage. Who now could honestly aver they manage to avoid “vandalism” – the word if not also, amidst some circumstances at least, the thing? A god one actually would need to be in order to save oneself from the necessity of it, and even then whether this really were possible might well admit of doubt.
In the best conceivable case, if one turns a bit of vandalism upon the vandalising urge itself, one might have some success in neutralising it. From such a manœuvre, however, most often a result other than neutralisation will eventuate. As happened with him, the author seemed to recognise, when decades later he looked back at the episode. Je créai le mot pour tuer la chose.* A strange word-creation it was in his own considered view, readers might infer: if even the object were killed off at all, soon it then returned to life: as could have been predicted, for it itself had not only furnished the target but also pointed the instrument.
* Mémoires, vol. i, ch. iii
Inadvertently or otherwise, from such destructive urges the language emerged – augmented by an essential term! It is a reversal to ponder. Somehow, this singular entity, language, can also turn to account the fumblings of those who prove not entirely conversant (a standard which all at times fail to meet): these it knows how to put to good use, even when they amount to acts of vandalism.
Language’s resilience is worth heeding: this lesson was drawn a few years later by another author, Charles Nodier. Had the genesis of “vandalism” been taken as a cautionary tale? Il n’y a point de langue qui ne suffise à tout, he insisted, quand on sait s’en servir. Lexical invention is in fact an index of incapacity. Néologisme, c’est impuissance.* – And yet this very lack of power shown by individuals, can supply bursts of energy to the linguistic undertaking as a whole.
* “Diatribe du docteur Neophobus contre les fabricateurs de mots”
Andalusia, the province of Spain to which the Vandals bequeathed at the very least their name, reduced in the course of time but still legible, and more particularly Seville, its capital, is the native locale of the artist Sergio Gómez, who works under the moniker SRGER. Self-taught he began in the milieux of open-air graffiti, wielding different varieties of paint to create murals whose forms were both rhythmic and abstract, executed on public surfaces such that simply by definition they constituted pieces of vandalism.
To my mind, at a moment like ours when the worst vandalising hails from above and bears an official stamp, it is a fool’s errand to raise objections to graffiti on the plane of ethics; more to the point, and in keeping with these inscriptions’ aim, as it appears or ought to be, what they call for is an æsthetic assessment. But then, alas, so much of it covers anything vertical with ugliness, that one is tempted to dismiss all of it straightaway. (Especially as those mute scribbles do not convey anything like the sound of serious protest, do they?)
Drowned out by all that bleakness, however, every so often there are moments of emergent beauty, such as those one finds photographed on the pages of the artist’s website or presented on his representative’s in Madrid, the Swinton Gallery: they are instances one may exempt from a more general aversion to defacement.
Specific æsthetic reservations about works in the genre are voiced by artists with other backgrounds, other formations. A freneticism counterbalanced insufficiently by calm, is an idea often brought up; when this criticism holds good, the visual overload might very well be an analogue of the artist’s musical preferences (that music exerts a great inspiration in such a case, I assume is quite probable indeed).
Comparisons of music and graffiti do spring to mind, especially when attention is centred on the works inspired by the latter which have ventured from the streets into today’s art galleries. Yet does this affinity not evince a deeper ground in the nature of a graffito itself; could not there be a musical dimension to the process whereby one is inscribed in the first place? – Yes, all of that seems likely.
One photograph taken by Brassaï may help to concretise the suggestion.*
* Consult also Karolina Ziebinska-Lewandowska, Brassaï.
Brassaï, “Graffiti,” série iii: “La Naissance de l’homme” (1950s), Untitled
Into the vertical surface of the tree a face has been graffitied, incised by means of pocket- or pen-knives; for this work was not carried out in one go, in all likelihood, but done in stages, executed sequentially by a few hands. How it happened? Struck by a few random markings on the bark, faint hints at most of a possible pattern, a passer-by stopped to whittle a bit at an aperture, then moved on; the outline thus become somewhat more definite, the invitation to an inscription not being sapped, but further underscored, someone else would accept it, imbuing what even then seemed a visage with another lineament of form. Intermittently, likewise with one or two quick vandalisms, le progrès se rythme par petites secousses, and by these chance steps which nonetheless followed one another as if observing some rudiments of music, la glu de l’aléa fait sens,* that is, a lasting image did come together. Under these conditions, the face looking like it had been there for a very long time, il a si vite vieilli, this graffito which began early to exhibit the marks of great age, that subsequently other passers-by might ask if it even ever had been made, or else whether dans l’ombre pendant des millénaires it consented to await the day when a photographer would encounter and resolve to immortalise it, le moment d’illumination où il serait enfin connu.** In the meanwhile, evidently, this mouth, these brows, this nose were content not to efface themselves, announcing their presence by a bold tune whistled for those ready to hear it.
* Jacques Derrida, Glas
** Michel Foucault, Les Mots et les choses, ch. ix, ii
A graffito may gather its forces and assert itself aurally even before addressing its vandalism to the eyes; the distinction could serve as one criterion of æsthetic quality. In so doing it would evince the characteristic expressiveness of a face, rendering even other subjects face-like. By this some higher degree of beauty might be realised, or otherwise a memorable and striking impression made.
From vandalism to art the spectator/auditor is drawn by the series of paintings which SRGER presented last year, “Del grano a la montaña.” Photographs of these works may be found on his website, exhibited in a manner that goes well with their genesis. Some are landscapes, others less definite as regards their locale though still legible as scenes, but many, when considered with attention, bear at least a hint of the face’s expressivity. – I include two images to show what I discern.
Sergio Gómez, “Del grano a la montaña” (series, 2023), Untitled
“Del grano a la montaña,” Untitled
(photographs courtesy of Swinton Gallery, Madrid)
Here, not to disfigure an auditor/spectator’s possible experience, I shall stop.