Arts, Man on Wire, and Bomb the Suburbs

Lilian Sun Maczynska The Literary Imagination 20 August 2012 Arts, Man on Wire, and Bomb the Suburbs Pan to Houston, Texas at night. On an consequence of Stephen Fry in America, produced by Andre Singer, standing on a stage in a dimly lit room, surrounded by Houstons elite, pretender and comedian Stephen Fry speaks of the importance of the arts. Oscar Wilde quite rightly said, All art is use little. And that may sound as if that means its something non cost supporting. But if you actu exclusivelyy think about it, the things that matter in life are useless. Love is useless. Wine is useless. Art is the love and wine of life.It is the extra, without which life is not worth living. In contrast to Fry, there are people who wish the government would cut funding for the arts. And then there are the creative persons. People who involution for the right to practice their art, whether they consciously know theyre fighting or not. People who will go to amazing lengths to showcase their a rt, and their dedication and determination is what gets them mentioned class after year after year. People like Philippe Petit, the quirky French high-wire artist who flew from France just to walk on a wire across the rival Towers, whose life is forever immortalized in the documentary Man on Wire.People like William Upski Wimsatt, one of the most prolific Chicago-born graffiti artists, who inspired a genesis of graffiti artists to view graffiti as an art form in his book Bomb the Suburbs. Using whatever methods they can, nefarious or not, they both worked to achieve their dreams and take aim their message to the world. They managed to pull people out of the blase out tonicity mentioned in Georg Simmels scholarly shew The Metropolis and Mental feel.One of the most prominent situations where an artists dream pulled people out of the unc at one timerned manner in which they carried themselves was the 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers by Philippe Petit. High-wire pas eo is a form of tightrope walking, such(prenominal) like tight-wire walking, which is the simple art of maintaining balance while walking on a tensioned wire. The difference between the two is that high-wire is at a much great height. The amount of concentration and balance and individual must have to accomplish this is extremely important in the art of tightrope walking. This s a testament to the take aim of professionalism and dedication that Petit had. Although he gained his notoriety in the US for walking between the twin towers, he was already gaining observations from various other places in the world, such as France, where he walked between the two spires of the Notre Dame Cathedral, and Australia, where he walked between the two sides of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Petit realized his dream of walking between the Twin Towers when he was sixteen, curtly after he had taken up high-wire walking, while in the dentists office and molding an artists rendering of the towers as t hey would look when built.His passion for the art of high wire is best explained by Petit himself in the documentary Man on Wire directed by James Marsh. Life should be lived on the edge of life. You have to exercise rebellion to refuse to tape yourself to rules, to refuse your own success, to refuse to repeat yourself, to see any day, every year, every idea as a true challenge and then you are going to live your life on a tightrope. Because of his strong hope to be anything but boring, Petit put everything he had into his art.He practiced with family and friends, letting them help him improve so that one day he would achieve that dream of walking between the Twin Towers. After many years of planning and many hours the previous night setting up, Petit began taking his graduation steps on the wire. They were all indifferent and did not notice, except the people who were in on the coup (his nickname for the act). In 1903, German sociologist, Georg Simmel speaks of the blase attit ude the sights and sounds of the city brought to its inhabitants in his essay The Metropolis and Mental Life. There is perhaps no psychic phenomenon which has been so unconditionally reserved to the metropolis as the blase attitude. The blase attitude results first from the rapidly changing and closely compressed contrasting stimulations of the nerves. (Simmel par. 5) This is very much the attitude New Yorkers had when Petit started walking across the wire, on the Morning of August 7, 1974. tho after his then girlfriend, Annie Allix, began screaming and pointing to the people around them Look Look Look, a wire- pedestrian Hes walking did people look up and see him, this magnificent artist, walking on the wire, and they were astounded. Said the police officer, Sgt. Charles Daniels, who was sent to apprehend him, I observed the tight rope dancer because you couldnt call him a walker approximately half-way between the two towers. I personally figured I was watching something that s omebody else would never see again in the world. Thought it was once in a lifetime. By following his dream, no matter the risk (falling to his death, getting arrest d for trespassing), Philippe Petit brought to the world, his own little magic spell of art, forever immortalized in history, and will always be known as the man who laid in the clouds. Fast forward twenty years, and youve wandered into the time period of William Upski Wimsatt. A silly white boy, growing up in the ghetto of Chicago, he was gifted with the art of graffiti. Graffiti is a form of public art, usually spray painted on walls, lamppost, mail boxes, or any other public surfaces, originally used as a form of marking territories between gangs. As time progressed, it became less of a mark of territory, and more of an art form.When graffiti emerged as an art form in the late 1960s in New York City, it was immediately a contentious topic. (Bowen 22) The connotation with gangs and vandalism have fueled the media to paint it in a negative light, and many graffiti artists, or writers as many of them run across themselves, feel that if they spoke up about it, they would be patronized for their art and passion, especially since so many artists came from the ghetto, so instead, they just continued to quietly graffiti on their own, only signing their pieces with their signature, or what is known in the graffiti world as a tag.Above William Upski Womsotts tag (left), A piece by Upski entitled Upski (right) A 20-year-old Wimsatt saw the injustice behind this and set out to be a pioneering graffiti writer, to be a hip-hop transcriber in Chicago, and the be a hip hop journalist. (Wimsatt 164) in order to revel in the art of graffiti. He writes lets celebrate the city. lets celebrate the ghetto and the few people who arent running away from it. Lets stop jailor up the city.Lets stop fucking up the ghetto. Lets start defending it and making it work for us. (Wimsatt 11) On the surface of it all, it se ems as if Wimsatt only has a strong personal vendetta against suburbs, but he also supports the art of graffiti in a strong way, being an artist himself. With the publication of his book, he inspired a generation of graffiti artists in the 80s and 90s to not hide their art, but to display it proudly and have pride in it and they city in which they live.Although the act of vandalism is illegal (Wimsatt tells of stories where he had to hide and run from the police, or what he perceived to be the police in his paranoia), Wimsatt encourages the act of graffiti in spaces where it can be seen, musical composition to a fan and fledgling graffiti artist, Choose spots that maximize the good impact of the work, while minimizing its bad side-effects. Maximize public exposure, surprisingness and move of a piece, while minimizing its insult, and cost to people of the city.The best targets for piecing are usually abandoned buildings, rooftops, and neighborhood permission walls, especially in un expected places. Questionable targets take all public or private property that gets buffed and raises the cost of living. (Wimsatt 57) With this, he deliberately proves that he wants to bring recognition and fame to the beauty of the art of graffiti for the art, and not for any destructive reason. Petit and Wimsatt have both brought fame to themselves, and their arts.They both risked getting arrested by the police to be able to showcase this, to inspire a nation, and to motivate a generation. Through diligence, commitment, and persistence, artists every day, not just Philippe Petit and William Upski Wimsatt, contribute to the life force of the arts, as more and more people become aware of the importance of the arts, and pull in to support it. Petit and Though, yes, the arts are not necessary to live, and not every person needs it to be able to sustain a job or anything of the like, however, if one would just imagine the works without art, it is a bleak world.No paintings, no musi c, no tv, no fashion, no anything that makes this world one worth living in. same(p) Stephen Fry said, Art is the love and wine of life. It is the extra, without which life is not worth living. 10 Philippe Petit and William Upski Wimsatt unquestionably believe that. Works Cited * Bowen, Tracey E. Graffiti Art A present-day(a) Study of Toronto Artists. Studies in Art Education41. 1 (1999) 22-23. Print. * Fry, Stephen. Mountains and Plains. Stephen Fry in America. Dir. John-Paul Davidson and Michael Waldman.BBC. 02 Nov. 2008. Television. * Man on Wire. Dir. James Marsh. Prod. Simon Chinn. By Igor Martinovic, Michael Nyman, J. Ralph, and Jinx Godfrey. Magnolia Pictures, 2008. DVD. * Simmel, Georg. Altruists foreign 404 Error Page. Altruists International 404 Error Page. N. p. , n. d. Web. 23 Aug. 2012. http//www. altruists. org/static/files/The%20Metropolis%20and%20Mental%20Life%20(Georg%20Simmel). htm. * Wimsatt, William Upski. Bomb the Suburbs. New York, NY Soft Skull, 2000. Pr int.