Street Art – ‘It’s Rubbish Init’

I caught the last day of Tate Modern’s ‘Street Art’ exhibition which was on the river façade of its own building and in the streets around. I talked to a few others gazing at the work of the featured Spanish artists and at other local graffiti and discovered some very interesting additional London quirks too.

Some of the pieces in Tate’s Street Art exhibition were small and insignificant (above) and were outshone by the local, unknown graffiti artists (below). Why did Tate Modern have Spanish artists decorate London streets (presumably at some expense) when we have our own talent who do it for nothing?

An old guy hesitated for a minute when I asked what he thought. ‘Its rubbish, init’. (no question mark)

But some were more impressed.

I spoke to Helen and Ben who thought street art was ‘more inclusive’ ‘It interacts with London’ They thought it was good to ‘have art everywhere, not just in galleries’ which they thought could be ‘clinical’ and generally was made by ‘rich, white guys’.
Thought – any female graffiti artists out there?

Then round the corner, tucked away in Redcross Way, I stumbled upon Red Cross Garden and Octavia Hill. ‘19th century Bankside was a grim, squalid area, overcrowded and packed with factories and slum dwellings. Octavia Hill, a co-founder of the National Trust, and ardent social reformer, established Red Cross Garden in 1887 as an ‘open air sitting room for the tired inhabitants of Southwark’. She went on to build six neighbouring model dwelling cottages as a determined move to improve housing for the working poor, alongside a community hall, then known as as a ‘Parish parlour’.

In Clink Street, next to Vinopolis, there was a massive mural of a machine. The Design Centre had an information stall there and Linda, Sally, Helen and Martin, who were manning it, had spent a lot of time discussing what the image was all about. ‘It spews out ketchup’, ‘It’s an espresso maker and there are the beans’, ‘No, those are cherries’, ‘You put money in there and lollipops come out over there’.

And then another discovery on Redcross way - Cross Bones Graveyard
It is really only decorated gates beyond which is a medieval, unconsecrated graveyard for prostitutes ‘Winchester Geese’ and paupers –  now covered by a junk yard.  There was excavation when the Jubilee line was being built. A third of the bodies found dating from the first half of the 19th century were of foetuses and babies under 7 days old and the rest were women who died from smallpox, tuberculosis, etc. Odder still is that it has become a site of importance once more. An informal local group, Friends of Cross Bones, is campaigning for a permanent memorial garden, and it holds monthly meetings and Halloween events. The gates are permanently decorated by a changing array of messages, ribbons, flowers and other tokens, including one remembering the murdered Ipswich prostitutes. There was a small shrine where a woman lit a joss stick.

And what a wall in the Bear Gardens! It was covered with colourful images, including a great 3D tongue, some hands, an eyeball, emerging from what was in the past, a very dull wall. But a young man walking under them said to me, ‘Oh, I hadn’t noticed it. And I work round the corner. It all looks a bit alien.’

Then there are the huge images on the Tate itself. Just watching people pass them, there is obviously so much interest, particularly from children, and attempts to explain the works. Overheard - ‘If you have yellow skin, you have to go around naked otherwise you have security cameras on you’.
Ingrid Beazley
All photos by me

Related Dulwich OnView post: South London Street Art