Candalism
May 2008
New York City,br> Wax + Performance + Video
In 2008, during the months of April and May I decoded the graffiti on various doors throughout New York City. I then performed ceremonies at these locations by melting wax through laser-cut stencils while reading the names on the doors and a remixed benediction. I dubbed the work Candalism.
If anything, the act of leaving one's mark is a universal one. From NASA's flag planting on the moon to the Lascaux caves, humans have been leaving their mark in an assortment of ways. My investigation of line drawings as interpreted by graffiti artists is just another branch of humans innate need to make an announcement of presence.
Graffiti, very simplistically, has two momentums behind it: its physical nature and its story. The symbiotic relationship of these elements is especially significant since the mark making of graffiti is a tenuous one at best. The story which initially supplementally serves the visual outlives the mark and becomes the mark through folkloric oration. The stories of Espo doors, Revs pages, and Smith pieces will forever be crystal clear in writers head; even after the fact that there are few if any remaining.
While dripping the first Candalism on avenue B in Alphabet City I also realized that my body language took on a different context. I transitioned away from the typical on-guard tagger posture and into a prayer pose. The nature of working with the wax and at ground level reduced me to kneeling. Instantly bystanders mistook me for an individual in prayer or mourning and passed without a whisper or inquisitive remark. The obviousness of kneeling alone while hovering above a lit candle derailed my project at the very beginning. I knew from that moment I wanted to include some form of prayer and religious iconography to theatricalize the procedure. As quoted by Robert Cooper from Landscapes of Light: An Anthology of Prayers, "[T]he attention required by creativity is not simply an illuminating parallel to prayer. It can be prayer in itself. The true artist not only looks, but sees - and this deep looking is a spiritual activity."
The intersplicing of Graffiti and Religion is a quite easy metaphor to make. Both tend to believe their path is a righteous path and above all a pure one. They both follow ritual behavior patterns, worship in certain places, read certain texts, and can recite these texts. Beginning to understand the similarities I decided to not just create temporal wax offerings but to perform a sermon where I would read the text off the wall as one would recite a benediction. Strangely enough I could recall from memory various prayers from going to Cathocism in the 4th grade. It was odd knowing something could be so embedded within a person that they could recite it verbatim many years later. Juxtaposing graffiti and Roman Catholic prayer I remixed "Our Father" to develop into "All Writers". I used this prayer as the benediction when I visited the doors. Generally, I would begin by stating, "In the name of the Kings, the Toys, and the Moldy Growth. I would then kneel before the door and recite the verse while beginning candalizing the ground beneath me.
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