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LONDON GRAFFITI at the mystery spot / crackhouse

Added 02/05/06
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LONDON GRAFFITI at the mystery spot / crackhouse

[LESS INFO] 87 VIEWS | ADDED 12:36:55 02/05/06
http://www.graffitiTV.net The Mystery Spot About 1 year ago I was lurking around the East End of London searching for walls to paint where I wouldn%rsquot get arrested by policemen and I went past a warehouse with boarded up windows.. one of the windows was open and I saw a large %lsquoCaliper Boy%rsquo piece of graff. I turned the corner into the buildings loading bay and made a discovery : bombed out walls, missing ceilings, shit, condoms, syringes, sodden mattresses, children%rsquos toys (?), grubby lingerie, suitcases, Christmas trees, posters torn out of National Geographic magazine, slabs of concrete, strange pipes made from soft drinks bottles and tin foil, telephone booth prostitute calling cards, old newspapers.. This was not a very desirable residence , it was probably ten years from getting flattened to make place for live/work lofts, but it had a certain rugged charm, so this became my new hangout. I got my paints and started decorating, careful not to jab my foot on one of the used needles. Although I first thought this place was abandoned I became aware that it had in fact many tenants who checked in for a while and then left, and there were other semi-permanent residents. In one pitch black passageway there were 2 mattresses, a calor gas stove and touchingly, posters of pandas and elephants duct taped to the wall. A bit of paint, a few throw pillows and this would have made a cozy pied a terre in an area of prime rent. I felt touched by the posters and the attempt to make this a cheerful place. I was puzzled by the spectacle of children%rsquos toys abandoned on the ground floor and I tried to work out their meaning. They looked totally bizarre in that environment %ndash so brightly coloured and surrounded by shit. There is nothing sadder than a %lsquomy little pony%rsquo when it is grubby and abandoned mid play.. Who%rsquos little pony had it been? %lsquoThe Mystery Spot%rsquo threw up a lot of questions but I wasn%rsquot getting any answers. I started spending more time there painting and the more characters / fragments I uncovered there gave me more of an idea about the meaning of the place. Motorcycle John : I saw this bloke in wearing full motorcycle leathers hanging out in the loading bay as I was leaving the spot with %lsquoNylon%rsquo another visitor to the spot. We ducked back into the building nervously, thinking he was a motorcycle security guard or something. As we finally left we bumped into him again, going into the building with a lady who had the unmistakeable look of a Commercial Street hooker.Not a very glamorous look- If you%rsquove seen it on the street you know it%hellip I%rsquove been offered a quick shag for �10 before by one of them, with a cheery %lsquoyou look clean, I could do with a warm up%rsquo. Johns motorcycle was parked outside , I imagine he had picked her up around the corner and then rode her into the mystery spot for a quickie. She looked a if she had had mile of cock in her career.She didn%rsquot look embarrassed about being caught out at all.. not like he did.He gave us a slight knowing nod, we all knew we were up to no good. I became really hooked on going into the place and I started bringing in more and more people to see the place, almost like the Victorians who would visit the %lsquoBedlam%rsquo asylum to se the spectacle of the insane. When we visited however , we left our art. One week I took in %lsquoOther%rsquo and %lsquoLabrona%rsquo two Canadian artists inspired by Kerouac and Guthrie who illustrate ageing boxcars that ride the length and breadth of the Americas. They worked in oil pastels and created sad, twisted figures that seemed to inhabit the doorways and windows they were framed in. As we left the place we bumped into a middle aged man, shambling around the building on his own %ldquoI just like to watch%rsquo he said. How odd. Next time I was there with Blek le Rat , one of the originators of stencil graffiti art. He is a legend in Paris for his full length stencil figures. We went in with DV cameras this time, a couple from Taiwan and China were producing a book about street art.. Blek pasted up a huge stencil image of himself carrying two implausibly large old suitcases. It looked like he had just arrived and was moving into the space (or just leaving) and was situated on a wall surrounded by the abandoned suitcases and general human detrius. It looked like it had been created specifically for that space. As we left we passed a body in a corner in a rancid sleeping bag . Somebody ? A body ? When I went there next week he had gone. I did a little painting and explored higher and deeper into the place, and one day took a four foot high polystyrene %lsquogimp%rsquo up onto the top of the building and walked around the perimeter wall of the buildings shell and lowered the figure onto a lower rooftop with a cable. I was terrified. There was a hundred foot drop down onto rubble and needles and there was only a rusty wobbling metal rail between me and the fall to my death. Still, it%rsquos a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Installing gimps and dodging death doing a high %ndash rise balancing act. Next visit I took Swoon one of NY%rsquos finest artists into the spot%hellip we%rsquod been on a Friday morning paste-up mission around the east-end and this was the last stop. She installed 3 figures of children she%rsquod seen in Havana Cuba, playing with a ball in a smashed out hole 3 stories up , framed by straggly trees and defunct pillars, holding up the sky. Swoon has an aversion to the white space of galleries and that%rsquos why she chooses to put up her work in %lsquothird spaces%rsquo that are abandoned and decaying. She told me that she%rsquod been invited to show her work in a gallery but because it was such a negative space she chose to put up her pieces in the alleyway next to the gallery instead. One morning an old man told her he had spent the night in the alleyway whispering to the figures and telling them his story. He thanked her for the experience. Surely he would have been ejected from the gallery if he had tried doing something so %lsquoweird%rsquo. I was struck by this story and by the poetry that all of the artworks brought to this %lsquothird space%rsquo.The strong character of all of the artists work had soul, it seemed to inhabit the environment and give it life. I think the last time I went in there with a friend of Blek%rsquos who wanted to film some of the pieces we saw a guy I recognised at the bottom of a stairwell- I%rsquove seen him on the street trying to sell a dirty crushed up year old copy of %lsquoThe Big Issue%rsquo magazine and trying to hold himself together. When we saw him he had his trousers halfway down and he was calmly injecting smack into his cock. As we descended the stairway and passed him he continued calmly with no shame %ldquoyou%rsquore the graffiti guy%rdquo he said %ldquodon%rsquot kick over my works%rdquo%hellip we left. I couldn%rsquot go back there for a while, I just couldn%rsquot face it. %ldquoyou%rsquore the graffiti guy%rdquo you are the junkie. Given a choice, I know which option I%rsquod choose. I am struck by the thought of how many empty spaces there must be in London and in towns all over the world, and about the spirit of these places that are thought abandoned and yet give shelter to so many people whose lives are filled with such infinite suffering. It would be foolish to think that by adding art to these places we make an enormous difference to anybody%rsquos lives there, but creating art in the mystery spot has had a profound effect on me and on the many people who have visited %lsquoThe Mystery Spot%rsquo or %lsquoThe Crack House%rsquo as it is also known. It has given an insight into peoples lives we rarely encountered and it has given us a free space to make art on walls that have been abandoned. Hopefully we%rsquove brought a bit of poetry to those walls. (first published in MODART magazine) Web links Pure evil http://www.pureevilclothing.com http://www.fotolog.net/pureevil Other http://www.fotolog.net/nothinginside Labrona http://www.fotolog.net/labrona Blek le Rat http://blekmyvibe.free.fr/ Swoon http://www.wearechangeagent.com/swoon/