Tuesday, January 26, 2010

LaPiztola

LaPiztola is a street artist from Oaxaca, Mexico. This notorious city which I spent a month in several summers ago, is full of political graffiti.









The Image above depicts some sort of bio-engineer taking corn samples from a campesino's crop. Shes holding him up with a gun. "No Monsanto i will no longer take your bullshit, i dont know how your fucking patents got into my crop but if you dont leave in 15 seconds i will shoot you in the face."I think it is fantastic and powerful work, a relief from all the bullshit we see here. Where the only art that is able to get on the walls is made by a marketing executive from some shitty company, who probably looks like this: http://www.utalkmarketing.com/Pages/fsImageResize.aspx?fname=../UTMImages/Old/633204602230378750.jpg%20&w=352&h=249

Democracy is struggling people, in art as well as politics! In New York City its fact that a large portion of ad's we see every day are illegal. Ironically, we also have one of the most notorious anti-graffiti police forces, the one and only Vandal Squad. This bureaucratic paradox makes it is easier for Nancy (see pic above) to cut a deal with NPA to put up hundreds of thousands of Pepsi advertisements without paying the city a thing, than for a kid with a can of spray paint to throw up an ! (STP) !

















Some people have taken in their own hands to challenge this, such as the Anti Advertising Agency , A story i heard from a close friend was that when she and another friend confronted a NPA employee he threatened them and then proceeded to punch this kid in the face. Resistance isn't easy, but imagine, what these guys are doing is actually against the law. There are so many things that are deemed legal that are far worse..For this battle we actually are partially on side of the law; although in my opinion i would like to see non-consensual advertisement banned, paid for or not. Soo.. about spraying pesticides, bombing countries, and suing indigenous people in mexico for growing Monsanto patented corn, these things are actually legal, id say there is not more time for loosing. crazy what money can buy you.

1 comment:

Lyndellita said...

I really like this, you have interpreted this in an original spirit. I love your energy and concern. You rock, but the play on words is lapiz and pistola entonces lapiztola (one word)