streeting in hues of sabiduria.

when all is said and done, the writing's already on the wall. there's no need to fret over the socio-national origins of public education or the post-war bourgeois role of the state in constituting a perpetual domination of the masses through the manufacture of historiographical heresies by way of chauvinistically fraudulent curriculum; at least, that is, not in buenos aires:

one of the advantages of having a large, unorganized and fractured left is the occasional cynicism it inspires (whether deserved or not) - and the politico-historical imagination, shall we say, that springs from such disillusionment. not that a fractured base is necessary to question given political situations, however pernicious they may be; indeed, only through well-structured opposition can one dismantle - and eventually construct - one's own historiographical haven, be it ideological-communal, regional or national in scope. what advantages, then, can possibly be said to exist in a highly politicized yet simultaneously marginalized political ambiance? the imagination, my friend, the imagination - as well as the nerve.












more than a few people have remarked the extent to which buenos aires street art is overwhelmingly political in nature. perhaps this is somewhat akin to when john adams said that "i must study politics and war so that my sons may study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children the right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry and porcelain." (i might scrap the last two for something slightly more gumptious, but that's just me). whereas berlin and new york street artists can busy themselves with expressing the oddities of the modern, pre/post-yuppie condition, the boys in Bs As are must first address the contradictions that escape their politicians (how we could all learn a lesson or two from them). whence such a cosmopolitan vision? i would like to know. the socially, politically, economically and ethnically marginalized in the u.s. do not take to paint as ofter as their counterparts elsewhere; when they do, tis less to expose the geo-social contradictions into which they were born than an immediate yearning for communal attention, or so i suspect. such attention, however, if and when it is obtained, is rarely communal in scope - and when it is, is more often met with contempt than solidarity.

i interviewed an aging former guerrilla and life-long militant yesterday evening who had many an interesting thing to say. amongst a number of gramscian truisms, there were several that stood out in particular: for one, he took great pains to remind me that repressive, bourgeois military rule is always a sign a weakness rather than strength. the real trick is getting people to ignore the root/s (and manifestations!) of their socio-existential malaise as they stare them in the face and consequently not act thereupon (in concerted fashion). none of this is new, of course, as any functionally well-read and semi-critical observer will note. nonetheless, it begs an important question: what is more pernicious - a semi-functioning confederacy of well-oiled, oligarcho-populist spin-doctors whose constituents know, fear and condemn them in the streets - through art if nothing else - or a highly efficient, quasi-democratic though faux-representative ethnocratic political culture that even encourages vandalism, so long as it's neither political nor artistic in scope? at times, it is hard to distinguish between the two (the former ostensibly emblematic of tina-land, the latter of the states). at this point, we only ask that the citizen-artist make the attempt.