5. Panda/Choas (stencils)

All of my entries thus far have been connected chronographically in some way or another. I kinda like that and as it turns out I have I have another perfect segue from my previous entry about the Redwood Laundromat Pieces, into this entry on stencils. At the Redwoods Laundromat, amidst all the T-to-B and E-to-E pieces, and amazing throwies.. on the far east end of the wall, there was a single stencil. This bit of the wall had no other graffiti. My best guess is that it was too short of all, and with all the other great real estate from the legal spot, who would want to take left-over space anyways? How about machine gun wielding Panda?

Bad Panda Records, Redwood Laundromat at South Park, San Diego CA, July 2013

 

Chaos, Ocean Beach Side in  San Diego CA, July 2013

Stencils came after tags, throwies, and pieces. Use of stencils really started with the Post Graffiti movement (Waclalala). Stenciling does not concern itself with writing style as writers do. Stencils also don't concern themselves to much with aesthetics as some street artists do. They are similar to tags in that they facilitate quick application. Also, they produce the virtually the same image every time. Although tags do use a physical  matrix/master copy such as stencils to reproduce instances, they work in a similar way more often than not. Stencil therefore live in a sort of twilight existence between graffiti and street art. During my expeditions to search for graff and street art, I only came across 4 stencils. I found the Panda at Redwoods, then I found the two Chaos stencils in Ocean Beach, and lastly I found the SUBversive near the coffee cart at UCSD. View pictures below for each.

Choas, Ocean Beach sidewalk at  San Diego CA, July 2013

The stencil that I want to discuss those most is the panda stencil. This stencil really spoke to me. When I think of Panda bears, I always think of them as being in a zoo. I guess its because I've never seen one in the wild in person or on tv. I'm not a fan of zoos. I know that they are treating the animals okay and that it some cases they even protect endangered species.. but every time I go to the zoo, I always feel bad for the animals.  To me the look unhappy. That's probably why the image of a Panda with machine guns in the air was gave me a good laugh. I imagined the Panda breaking out of zoo. The stencil reminded me of the feeling I have about the zoos, something that I hadn't thought of in at least a decade. When I saw the stencil sitting there on the corner of the wall in place that had been overlooked by all the big pieces at that spot, it felt just as powerful, sort of a like an outsider or an underdog. I had no idea who made the stencil as it has no verbiage.  I did some basic research on the web using the terms panda stencil. Eventually I found a site that claimed that this panda stencil was created by Banksy. At first I was really excited but then I got to thinking that it could just be a copy cat artist. That's the thing about stencils, unlike writing, they can easily be reproduces. However, does this even matter. I mean lets say that the stencil was created by Banksy and that some kid in San Diego created a duplicate. Does it matter that it wasn't Banksky who actually put in place. Maybe Banksy collectors would say that it absolutely does. Another argument is that since Banksy didn't put it there then the message isn't as powerful because Banksky work is usually site specific. Okay well, there is a zoo in San Diego.. and well would it make more sense if it was placed there? Probably. It worked for me, even though it was out of context at that location. According to Waclawek more often than not, stencils are use to communicate political messages. I would definitely say that the machine gun wheeling Panda did just that for me. The funny thing is that I kept doing more research on it and eventually I found it out that its not a Banksy stencil at all. This stencil was created by Julien Fanton D'Andon for a record company called.. Bad Panda Records. So the designer of the image might not have had a political intention at all. He might have just been training to create an image that would match the labels name. Ultimately this turns out to be a case of a guerilla marketing techniques for a small record company. They placed their logo under the guise of street art to draw attention. Its a clever ploy and it reminds us that sometimes the tables are turned. Sometimes, business use guise of street art to further their own agenda.  

The Chaos stencils that I found in Ocean Beach have a totally different message. First and fore most, we have to deal with the text, the message it conveys. Chaos. Its simple and strait forward. Were it not for the text, I might not have been able to figure out the person in the last image is G.G. Allin. The infamous punk icon. He stands for anarchy and the world chaos fits well with him.